


one hundred red balloons

by 10vesick



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Rock Band, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Concerts, Eventual Happy Ending, Explicit Language, Falling In Love, M/M, Misunderstandings, Punk Rock, Secrets
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-23
Updated: 2020-03-23
Packaged: 2021-02-28 23:54:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 43,309
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23285854
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/10vesick/pseuds/10vesick
Summary: Mark Lee, guitarist for punk-rock band, Trigger The Fever, has always felt like he doesn't quite belong. Whether it's on stage or in between his group of friends, there's always something in the back of his head haunting him, reminding him that he's not supposed to be there.That something is Wong Lucas.
Relationships: Chittaphon Leechaiyapornkul | Ten/Qian Kun, Mark Lee/Wong Yuk Hei | Lucas, Nakamoto Yuta/Suh Youngho | Johnny
Comments: 16
Kudos: 209





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> hellooooo! i've been working on this fic over the past month, keeping myself busy with this story so i could really dive into it and deliver what i had envisioned. thank you so so much to [sofia](https://twitter.com/markheism99) for the prompt, but especially for the patience. I hope you enjoy it a lot !! ❤️🎈

**_SEE THE V – Take Over The Moon (REVIEW)_ **

_by Dong Sicheng_

_Of all the artists that seem to ooze quality nowadays, few feel quite as polished as See The V. The band's first album, ‘Feel The V’, was released earlier this year, helping establish the group as the stars they are today. It debuted at number 7 on Billboard's Top Heatseekers chart, and at number 21 on Top Independent Albums. The album spawned three singles, being ‘VISION’ the one that earned the band much recognition._

_Now, they’re back for more._

_The Chinese punk-rock band returned this past Friday with their second mini-album ‘Take Over The Moon’, looking forward to finishing the year showing the world they’re heading right for the top. The opening track and the album’s lead single ‘MOONWALK’ portrays perfectly the band’s strong, distinct sound, carried perfectly by Xiao Dejun’s outstandingly stable vocals. Fans have also been quick to praise Wong Lucas and his jaw-dropping guitar skills, which finish making each of the songs a definite banger, leaving the listener keen for more._

_The album has quickly climbed up to the #1 spot on the alternative rock charts, dethroning the fan-favorite rival band, Trigger The Fever, whose album ‘DUNK SHOT’ was released two weeks ago._

_All in all, ‘Take Over The Moon’ is the proof needed to show that See The V is a group going from strength-to-strength. They have produced one of the finest alternative rock albums of the year, and the overall result has shown that the only way is up for Xiaojun, Lucas, Hendery, and Yangyang– and there’s no doubt that their growing amount of fans will be there for the journey. Excited for the concert tonight._

_Album rating: 9.5/10_

– _🎈_ _🎈_ _🎈_ –

Silence reigns over the room as Ten finishes reading.

Yangyang is the first to snap out of it. “Holy. Fucking. Shit.”

Kun looks like he wants to scold him for his choice of words, but Ten puts a hand on his shoulder that asks him to stop.

After all, it’s a pretty big deal, what they just heard.

“We’re number one,” Xiaojun nearly whispers, like he’s not saying it to the rest but to himself, seeking to believe it.

There’s a few more seconds of silence before it finally hits them, and the four band members all break into naive laughter and incoherent screaming. Yangyang and Hendery launch forward to wrap their arms around Kun, the manager stumbling back and nearly falling on his butt. Xiaojun and Lucas cling onto each other, screaming _We made it_ over and over again as Ten complains about why is no one’s hugging him.

Then all four boys throw themselves on him, and he complains that they won’t let him breathe.

“You worked hard for this album and it shows, boys,” they hear Kun’s voice under the chaos, and slowly untangle themselves from Ten to look at him. “You should be proud of yourselves. I know I am.”

“Kun ge,” Xiaojun pouts, looking like he wants to wrap him in another tight hug.

Instead, Yangyang does. “You’re the best manager. _Ever._ ”

“And you,” Lucas pinches both of Ten’s cheek affectionately, making the older break into a fake hiss. “Are the best publicist ever.”

Hendery nods behind them. “Talk about a power couple in the industry.”

At that, Ten rolls his eyes, but the blush on his cheeks doesn’t go unnoticed. His eyes fall on Kun, who’s smiling, and his husband gives him a look that says _They’re right, though._

Of course they are.

“Alright, alright, children,” Ten gestures for them all to be seated, and it’s a miracle they obey. “We’re all proud of you. You’ve made it to the top, so let’s fight to stay there. Take this as encouragement for tonight. I didn’t get you booked into this place for nothing.”

SM Arena, where they’re about to perform the new album for the first time ever. Located in Seoul, South Korea, it hosts more high-profile punk rock concert events than any other place in the continent, and it’s still unbelievable Ten could get them booked there so soon. Lucas knows it usually takes rookie bands at least a year to perform there, so his knees are trembling and his hands are shaking but he’s ready.

This has been his dream for so long.

“Winwin will be there,” Ten reminds them. Dong Sicheng, stage name Winwin, solo artist and one of the biggest music critics in the scene. Also, the man who wrote the review they just read. “He gave you guys a thumbs up this time, but we know better than to get too comfortable. If you want to keep it up, you have to wow him tonight as well, okay?” 

The boys all nod, promising each other to do their best, the way they always do. Kun leaves somewhere to talk about stage directions and Ten says he has to go and make a bunch of phone calls, so they all get up and get ready for the concert tonight.

It’s going to be a night to remember, everyone’s sure of that.

– _🎈_ _🎈_ _🎈_ –

It’s deafening.

The crowd cheers, an ear-splitting roar that shakes the ground and makes him lose his balance. It’s deafening, and it leaves him speechless, scrambling to grasp for something to say. His chest aches, something that feels like fire burning at the pit of his stomach, setting his body ablaze, creeping up into his lungs and squeezing.

He smiles.

“Cas,” a voice next to him calls, distinctive in between the turmoil. He feels a nudge at his ribs, an encouraging push that shakes the weariness from his bones and the dazed haze clouding his mind.

Xiaojun smiles at him, the hoop on his nose glinting beneath the blinding stage lights as the fans in front of them go wild. 

Lucas gives himself a few more seconds to enjoy it– the screaming, the cheering, the chanting. The smile on his face does nothing but grow, his heart hammering inside his chest. Beads of sweat trickle down his temples, taking the blue of his hair dye with them, and he dabs at his face with a small towel Dejun chucks his way.

He clears his throat, grated raw after countless hours screaming, coaxing the audience to join in and sing along with them. He adjusts the strap on his shoulder, lowers his guitar— the _Ol’ Reliable_ , as he calls it— and grasps the microphone stand. 

“Good evening, everyone!” he starts slow, calm. He nods along to the enthusiastic greetings the audience hollers back. “Are you having fun?”

Screams erupt across the pit, a wave of enthusiastic nods and flailing limbs.

But Lucas shakes his head.

“I’m sorry, I couldn’t quite hear you,” he cups a hand around the back of his ear, the corners of his lips twitching up into a wicked grin. “I said, are you guys having fun?!”

The stage trembles beneath his feet, the tremors traveling up his legs, along his spine and sending a delicious thrill through his limbs, adrenaline into his bloodstream.

This is what he always dreamed of.

The exhilaration of standing before thousands and watching them stay, listen to him pour his heart and soul into every string he plucks. The warmth of sharing the stage with his friends– brothers, at this point. He turns around and looks at them fondly, silently saying _We’ve made it._ Xiaojun is still catching his breath. Hendery has his arms raised, embracing the crowd. Yangyang looks at the audience like he’s staring at the starry sky.

To think their dreams of expressing their thoughts and ideas through music had come true — Lucas is still waiting for the day he wakes up and finds out that none of this is real.

He’d been so close, so many times.

And now it’s finally true.

“I just want to say a few words, if you’ll allow me to get real deep for a sec,” Lucas says, and the fans quickly quiet down. It’s fascinating, how all of these people are willing to hear him, and it just makes his heart feel like bursting.

Yangyang jokingly plays a sad tune with his bass, making everyone, including Lucas, laugh.

Then it’s near-silent again, and he takes a deep breath. “First of all, I want to thank you all for being here. I know it takes effort from you to be here to see us play, so thank you very much, from the bottom of my heart,” he places a hand over his chest, and there’s a fair amount of clapping and _I love you_ s thrown his way. Then he continues. “Now, we just launched our second mini-album! Everyone enjoyed it?" 

More incoherent screaming echoes around the venue. Lucas laughs a little, because why does he even bother to ask questions if he can’t even hear an actual answer?

He loves it, anyway.

“You have no idea how happy it makes me to hear that,” he says, the smile on his face showing it. “Every single song we’ve made so far, we do it for you. Day and night we come up with melodies, write down lyrics, think of the message we want to deliver. It hasn’t been long since we debuted, so it’s truly a dream come true that we’re standing here today. And this dream was achieved thanks to every single one of you. It means the absolute world to us that you support us in what we do and give us so much love. ” 

Lucas sweeps a gaze across the crowd, ensuring he looks at each individual person cramped within the stadium, however fleeting the eye contact may be. He wants them to know just how big a role they play, needs them to realize their impact on his life. 

He fiddles with the guitar pick in his hand, runs it between his fingers as he tries his best not to get too emotional. He has quite the track record of letting his emotions get the best of him, and Yangyang had even bet Hendery that Lucas would probably end up crying at the end of this concert.

The youngest might just win this time.

“Still feels like it was only yesterday when we were playing at local bars and getting paid with free drinks,” he chuckles to himself, nostalgia hitting hard and almost knocking him off his feet. He’s still so grateful for getting discovered by Kun that fateful day. They couldn’t have made it without him.

Lucas inhales sharply, a shaky breath that he struggles to get past the lump in his throat. “It’s truly an honor to be standing at this stage in front of every single one of you. We’ll make sure to give you a night to remember.”

He receives the cacophony of excited screams and yelled praise as a warm hug, as his bandmates tease him a little over the speech he just gave. They all agree with him, though, and they promise the audience to deliver more music and more concerts in the future just before announcing the next song they’ll play.

It’s deafening.

And Lucas wouldn’t have it any other way.

– _🎈_ _🎈_ _🎈_ –

When Johnny finally comes downstairs, Donghyuck is already in panic mode.

“This is bad,” he says, walking up to the manager and waving his phone in front of his face. “Hello? Can we finally talk about how bad this is?” 

He’s showing the front page of a random music website, big bold letters reading _See The V’s Take Over The Moon: Highest grossing gig at SM Arena of 2019_.

Johnny’s still wearing his pajama pants but, judging by the look on his face, he’s probably already seen it.

Since the day before, the news of See The V’s new album outselling _Dunk Shot_ had been all over the internet, especially after the article posted by Dong Sicheng had brought attention to it. Johnny hadn’t called for a meeting then, telling the boys to remain calm and wait until the others had had their first comeback concert. After all, it’s the fans’ opinion the one to count the most, and if they didn’t receive the band well, there would be nothing to worry about.

But this morning, after their concert at SM Arena had proven to be a big success, Donghyuck had called an “emergency meeting”, dragging all of the Trigger The Fever members to their manager’s house to come up with a damage control plan.

“Come on, Hyuck,” Jeno tells him from the couch, too focused on the video game he’s playing on his phone. “It’s not _that_ bad. We were number one for two weeks! Shouldn’t you be happy for Lucas now?”

The mention of the name makes Mark shift uncomfortably on his seat.

Donghyuck shoots Jeno a deadly glare as he plops down on the couch next to him. “I am. Or I would be, if he were on number two, maybe.”

The rest of his bandmates can’t help but smile. Hyuck’s not a bad person, really– he’s just extremely ambitious.

“Alright, let’s calm down,” Johnny finally says after a few seconds of furiously typing on his phone. “I just talked to Taeyong. He’s scheduled a few interviews for this and next week, including one with Sicheng and one with Moon Taeil. And we’re releasing a music video in a few days so,” he takes a deep breath, releases it slowly. “It’ll be fine.”

He’s obviously still nervous, and he’s obviously not convinced it’ll be fine, but no one can really blame him. He’s always trying to do his best for the band.

“Of course it’ll be fine,” Jaemin reassures, waving the worry away and laying down on the couch to rest his head on Renjun’s lap. “It’s not like this hasn’t happened before.”

Renjun nods. “Yeah, it’s always like this with new bands. Remember that rookie group last year? Their first two albums were a hit and then...” he gives a thumbs-down and makes a sound with his tongue, implying things went bad from there.

And he’s right, everyone knows. It’s normal for the public to build up high expectations out of every new band that gets discovered, and it’s even more normal for those to die down soon— but not for them. Trigger The Fever has been a fan favorite since their debut, three years ago, and they will continue being it no matter how hard others try.

What could See The V have that they don’t?

“We’ll be back to number one in no time,” Jaemin says, as calm as ever. He looks like he’s a second away from falling asleep on Renjun’s lap. “In the meantime, let’s just be happy for our friend.”

 _Please, stop talking about him_. 

Mark tries to come up with something to say, whatever will take the attention away from all this talk about bands and old friends, but Donghyuck won’t let him. He breaks into a speech about how he’s really happy for Lucas, but that he also _really_ wants that number one spot on the charts, and Johnny tries reassuring him that they will (they should give him a prize for dealing everyday with Donghyuck– or any of the band members, truly). It’s a blessing to have him as a manager, Mark thinks. 

If only he could also stop them from talking about _him._

The sudden sound of the front door opening doesn’t really phase anyone in the house, but everyone’s attention is caught when the newcomer yells. “ _Honey, I’m home!”_

And so Nakamoto Yuta walks into the room.

His silver white hair is loosely tied back, a few strands falling on his forehead, and he’s looking extra cool as he walks in holding two take away cup holders in his hands. The artist makes his way around the living room, shouting greetings and offering both bright smiles and generic coffee orders to every boy in the room.

When he gets to Johnny his smile widens, and he hands him a cup that’s different from the rest. “A tall Americano, for my tall Americano,” he jokes, and Mark can swear he sees the manager’s ears turn red.

“Yuta,” Johnny says, the pitch on his voice going suspiciously high. Hyuck raises an eyebrow at him, and the older clears his throat before speaking again, this time in a more monotonous tone. “What are you doing here?”

Yuta flashes the best of his smiles. “I came to ask for your hand in marriage, of course.”

Johnny almost drops his coffee. Mark crumples his napkin into a small ball and throws it in Yuta’s way, laughing. “Knock it off.”

One could say that Yuta, solo artist and Japan’s top rockstar, is Mark’s closest friend inside the industry, if only slightly after Donghyuck. They’ve been friends since way before the younger had gotten the opportunity to debut, always giving him surprisingly helpful advice regarding the scene. And since he knew him for so long, Mark also knew he was a dangerous flirt— and Johnny was an easy target, so he’d taken it as his duty to protect his manager from his friend’s devilish antics.

“Had to shoot my shot,” Yuta laments, but still winks and clicks his tongue at Johnny’s way, and the older awkwardly clears his throat and goes back to drinking his coffee. “Anyway, the _real_ reason why I’m here is to invite my favorite demonic children to my house party this Friday.”

The five heads on the couch perk up and turn his way, interested.

“What’s the occasion?” Renjun asks.

Yuta shrugs. “The fact that I live yet another day.”

“Terrible news for us all.”

The older reaches out to flick his finger against Donghyuck’s forehead, earning him a reprimand from Johnny and a laugh from Renjun, and it all turns into a mess of bickering and complaints that make Mark smile a little. It doesn’t last long, though, for a particular question pops up on his head, bringing back that uncomfortable feeling on his stomach.

Before he can stop himself, it’s out of Mark’s lips, barely audible. “Did you invite those See The V guys?”

For his misfortune, Yuta hears him.

Tearing his eyes away from Johnny, who’s still quietly drinking his coffee, the artist turns around to face Mark. “Heck yeah,” he says, throwing up a rock-on hand gesture. His nails are painted black. “They’re, like, hot shit right now. I made Doyoung send a text to their manager to see if they can make it.”

Renjun raises his eyebrows. “Does that mean we might get to see Lucas there?”

“Oh man,” Jeno smiles, in that way that makes all of his fans swoon. “I hope we do! We haven’t seen him in ages.”

“Maybe that way I can threaten him to give up the #1 spot,” Hyuck jokes and Jeno nudges him but they both laugh, and then Jaemin brings up _that time when Lucas did that_ and they all start laughing and recalling all kinds of stories from the past, wondering if Lucas would remember, too.

Mark stops listening then. It’s useless to try and ask them to talk about something else, because then he’d have to explain himself and he’d rather just avoid talking about it right now.

He leans back on the couch and plugs in his earphones, attempting to drown out the noise around him.

He chooses a random song from a random playlist he finds and starts scrolling through his phone. All he wants is to distract himself from all this— all this talk about albums and gigs and numbers. All he wants is to enjoy making music and enjoy other people making music without having to worry about anything.

He overhears Yuta getting back to trying (and miserably failing) to flirt with their manager. Jaemin and Renjun decide to head out to get breakfast. Jeno and Donghyuck continue talking about _that guy_. The original point of this meeting is somewhere lost in place, and so Mark stops listening.

Unfortunately for him, the internet is full of the same kind of crap, and it’s almost like a direct attack on his sanity when he stumbles upon a video called _192510 See The V’s Wong Lucas speech (try not to cry!!!)._

Out of sheer curiosity, he clicks on it. 

Lucas, guitarist for STV, is shown on stage, looking almost dumbfounded for the first few seconds of the video. He’s staring at the crowd like it’s the most beautiful thing he’s ever laid his eyes on, like he’s stuck in a trance or some sort of spell.

One of his bandmates calls for him, makes him snap out of it, and Lucas smiles from ear to ear and talks to his fans as if he were talking to a friend.

Then he goes on thanking them for their support, and he says this is like a dream come true.

It makes Mark’s stomach turn.

– _🎈_ _🎈_ _🎈_ –

Lucas almost can’t believe it.

The house that stands in front of them looks like it belongs on the #1 spot of an article about Dream Houses. It’s mind-blowing, in the sense that all other artist homes generally are, all big windows and bright colors. Everything is geometric, which you could say about almost any regular building, really, but in this house you can’t help but notice it— it’s three stories high, with a front door as wide as tall and windows to match. It makes Lucas think of how anyone could see into the place from an uncomfortable distance, and of how is Yuta able to sleep knowing that.

But even considering that, it’s _freaking_ amazing.

The front yard alone is full to the brim with people, all laughing and talking and smoking and drinking, loud music bursting rapaciously through the open door.

“Why am I kinda scared to go in?” Xiaojun mumbles, all four band members standing one next to the other in an almost straight line, eyes glued on the house standing tall before them.

It’s not like this is the first time they go to a party. All of them have had their fair share of loud-music, window-breaking, near-calling-the-cops experiences at a party of some sort, where they got to drink cheap alcohol and meet new people and overall have a nice time.

It’s not the first time they go to a party– but it is, however, the first time they go to a _famous person’s party._

The thought alone sounds unreal.

“Come on, guys,” Yangyang is the first one to recover, placing one hand on Xiaojun’s shoulder and the other one on Hendery’s. “This is where we belong now.”

And damn right they do. 

As they make their way in, they hear a few whispers and greetings that sound vaguely like their names, the loudest always being that of their band. Neither are yet used to it– the recognition granted by their own favorite artists, the smiles directed at them from across the room. There’s a good bunch of people that approach them to compliment and praise them, congratulating them for getting so big in so little, hinting at collabs, and wishing them more growth. Xiaojun gets especially pulled to the side by female artists and models to have their picture taken, and the poor leader looks so shy his bandmates fear he’ll pass out (Yangyang and Hendery make a bet about this, too).

Lucas, on the other hand, feels on cloud nine the whole time. He thanks people for longer than he should, smiles from ear to ear to anyone in the room, answers to compliments and praise with his own share of compliments and praise.

Each second they spend there, there are more drinks, more guests, more laughing and more people trying to capture their attention. At one point, a guy that says to be a recognized photographer walks up to Lucas, taps him on the arm, and tries to talk to him like they’re old friends, his breath smelling awfully strong. Lucas laughs slightly, but he talks to him until he leaves, and gladly accepts his presentation card. 

One can tell Lucas is genuinely a nice guy— down-to-Earth, attentive, thrilled and grateful by all the attention he gets. He’s funny and clumsy and just plain _nice,_ and he fits perfectly into this scene he’s finally been allowed entrance to.

It’s pure paradise for him, every second he spends there, and he nearly feels like he’s truly died and gone to heaven when it happens. 

The dream he’d been having becomes a wide-eyed reality, and he meets eyes with a handful of familiar faces from across the room 

“... _Oh my God._ ”

“No way.” 

“Is that him?”

“Holy shit!”

“That’s _really_ him!”

The first one to rush into his open arms is Jaemin.

Lucas hugs him tight the second he feels him run into his chest, and his excitement is such he even dares to lift him from the ground for a second, making them both laugh. Jeno and Renjun hug him at the same time after that, making jokes about his ridiculous height and mimicking old ladies by saying _You’ve grown so much, my dear!_ and Lucas nudges them and laughs, until it’s Hyuck’s turn. He hugs him tight, a lot tighter than the others, and his friend reaches a hand up to ruffle his hair as if he were an older brother welcoming back the little one.

It’s, overall, a heartwarming reunion to see. 

Anyone who’s been into the music industry for a while now knows that these boys used to train together back in the day, even dreamed of debuting together one day, too. Though unfortunate circumstances and bad luck had cost Lucas his spot inside Trigger The Fever all those years ago, he didn’t regret any single second he’d spent training under Dream Records label. He’d gotten to meet great people, make true friends, and learn a lot of the things that allowed him to finally debut with See The V years later.

It was all written, he likes to think. Perhaps this was his destiny.

Still hugging Donghyuck (he’s always been the clingy type, not that Lucas minds), the taller calls for his bandmates so he can introduce them to his old friends, and they begin talking and laughing together like they’ve all been friends for ages.

Except there’s someone missing.

Lucas sees him standing behind his old friends at a corner of the room. Mark’s all there on his own, plastic cup filled with beer in his hand, and he’s trying to avoid looking their direction by staring down at his hands. Lucas calls him and waves at him, though it comes off uncharacteristically shyly. Mark doesn’t wave back nor does he move, he just stares. 

So Lucas releases himself from his tight embrace with Donghyuck and walks up to him

“Hi there!” he says once he’s standing in front of the other, a big smile adorning his face. He leans forward a little to be heard over the music. It makes Mark take a step back. “Um, I don’t think you know me, I used to be a DR trainee as well! I’m–” 

“Lucas”, the other boy cuts in, eyes glued to the plastic cup on his hand. “Yeah, I know you.”

It’s unexpected, Mark’s hostility towards the newcomer. 

His voice is deadpan and he won’t look at him, and he pretty much looks like he’d rather be somewhere else than here. Jeno gives Renjun a questioning look, the latter simply shrugging as if to say he doesn’t know what’s going on either. 

Still, Lucas smiles. “Awesome! I was so bummed we never really got to know each other back then, you seem like a nice guy!”

Mark doesn’t say anything, and he still won’t look up to meet eyes with Lucas. Hyuck wonders if he imagined it, or if he really just saw Mark clench his jaw.

“I thought you’d trained together with all of them,” Hendery suddenly says, genuine doubt on his words.

Lucas lets out a nervous laugh, rubbing the back of his neck with a hand. “Well, yeah, all except Mark. He joined the band after I, you know…” his voice falters, the sentence incomplete in the air.

Mark knows what’s supposed to come next.

“I need another drink,” he says, though his cup is near full. Hyuck tries stopping him with a frown on his face, but Mark is quick to turn around to leave despite his friend’s protests. He doesn’t want to be here nor does he want to have to look at Lucas in the eye for one more second.

It makes him feel uncomfortable.

He just wants to leave.

– _🎈_ _🎈_ _🎈_ –

“What the fuck was that?” 

Mark frowns. “What the fuck was what?”

“What the fuck was that you know you did?” Donghyuck rolls his eyes. 

“What the fuck do I know I did?”

“What the f—“

“Oh my God,” Renjun cuts them off from the backseat, annoyed. “I will fucking _do_ something to the both of you if you don’t stop.”

The car goes immediately silent after that, the threat not taken too seriously but still respected. One of their staff members is driving them back to their respective homes after the party, all five boys slightly intoxicated and heavily tired, the way they always are after a party at Yuta’s. Jaemin and Jeno have fallen asleep on each other’s shoulders, mouths hanging open and slightly snoring. Renjun is near passing out, too, but Hyuck still has things left to address and he can’t wait until tomorrow. 

He crosses his arms over his chest. “Why were you so rude to Xuxi tonight?” he whispers to Mark, sitting next to him with his head resting against the window. 

The older’s frown deepens, eyes fixed on the passing cars outside. “I was not _rude_ to him.”

“Right, Mr. _Yeah-I-know-you_ ,” his friend mocks Mark, apparently mimicking his voice with a deeper, dumber tone. The older shoots him a dirty look. “You were practically telling him to fuck off.”

And, really, that hadn’t been Mark’s intention at all.

Because yeah, he’d felt uncomfortable standing there between his members and their old friend, and yeah, he’d wanted to not have anything to do with Lucas at any point of the night, and yeah, he was, in a sense, trying to make him leave.

Just not to _fuck off_. Mark hadn’t intended to be rude.

“Are you still hung up on… that?”

 _That_.

Although Hyuck doesn’t exactly say it, the last word alone is enough to send chills running down Mark’s back. He turns around to check if anyone else heard that— Donghyuck’s still whispering, but anyone around them could have easily heard and misinterpret the true meaning of _that._ Luckily enough, all their friends are fast asleep by this point, and the only person awake is the driver in front of them, hopefully focusing on the road instead of the tipsy boys speaking nonsense in the backseat.

Still, Mark doesn’t really give an answer— just keeps quietly staring outside the window— but the silence is enough to make Donghyuck sigh and roll his eyes in frustration.

Mark’s definitely still hung up on that.

“You need to let it go, Canada,” his friend’s voice says next to him. He’s not seeing him, but based on the warmth pressed up against him and the louder, clearer tone on his voice, Mark can tell the younger leaned closer to say this. He appreciates it. “What’s passed is past. It can’t keep haunting you forever.”

The older shrugs. “Watch me.”

Perhaps Donghyuck’s actually drunk, because instead of punching the lights out of Mark, he actually laughs. “I’m serious,” he mumbles, returning to sitting straight up on his seat. “You’re not protecting yourself from anything by avoiding Xuxi. If anything, you’re only making things worse.”

“I know that,” Mark sighs, finally turning to his side to meet eyes with Hyuck. The older looks sad and tired, and maybe just a little tipsy, and Donghyuck reaches out to hold his hand and squeeze it to show support. “I just can’t help feeling this way when I see him.”

Hyuck hums. “Isn’t that a sign that you care?” he asks, his voice dropped down to a whisper. “You couldn’t have known, Mark.”

He’s right, he couldn’t. He didn’t until after it had long passed, and the thought still keeps him up at night on bad nights.

Mark doesn’t say anything, but he nods, holding onto Donghyuck’s hand while trying to convince himself that he needs to let go.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He wants to get to know this Mark.

“I think Mark hates me."

Ten frowns, eyes glued to his phone. “What Mark?”

From the other end of the couch, also mindlessly scrolling down his phone, Xiaojun asks. “Tuan?"

Hendery clicks his tongue. “No, no. He means Hamill.”

Yangyang hums. “I’m pretty sure he’s talking about Ruffalo.”

Lucas laughs at the conversation, shaking his head a little. His friends always manage to make him feel better without even really trying. “Lee! I meant Mark _Lee_.”

“Oh, you mean the Trigger the Fever guitarist who gave you the stink eye the other day and basically told you to fuck off,” Hendery nods, like it was obvious from the start. “Yeah, he totally hates you.”

So much for making him feel better.

“What?!” Ten finally looks up from his phone. “Mark Lee? Hating on anybody? Please,” the older scoffs, shaking his head. “He’s literally a cub. Back when I worked for Dream Records, he would always walk behind me because he was scared of being alone. A small lion cub, I tell you!”

“You used to work at Dream Records?” Xiaojun asks. “How is this the first time I’m hearing this?”

Yangyang seems confused, too. “And why did you stop?”

“Because he got married,” says the new voice entering the room. Kun takes off the handsfree headpiece from his ear as he approaches the band gathered in the living room, and he leans down to press a kiss to Ten’s temple, making the other smile. The rest make a disgusted noise in unison. “What are you all talking about?”

“About how Mark Lee hates Xuxi,” Yangyang explains like it’s nothing.

Kun frowns. “What? Mark Lee is nothing but a cub.”

“ _ Thank you _ , that’s what I’m saying!” his husband exclaims, throwing his hands in the air.

It all makes Lucas laugh again. “Okay, okay, I’m being dramatic. He doesn’t  _ hate _ me,” he mumbles, pouting slightly. “He just... Dislikes me, I guess.”

“Xuxi, who could ever dislike you?” Xiaojun nudges him affectionately.

“Yeah, you’re amazing. Literally the only man ever,” Hendery declares.

“All other men? Cancelled. Non existent. The ground you walk on,” Yangyang agrees.

Trying to ignore what they just said, but still laughing slightly, Kun turns around to look at Lucas. “Why do you think he dislikes you, Xuxi?”

The other shrugs. “He was kind of weird to me at Yuta’s party the other day. Like he was uncomfortable. I saw him talking to Hyuck before I approached them and he looked happy, but as soon as I got closer, he stopped,” Lucas recites what he remembers, his voice just a tone more quiet than usual. “I just wanted to be his friend.”

Ten moves closer to Lucas over the couch and puts a hand on his knee. “Don’t think too much about it, baby,” he reassures. “Maybe he was just tired. Mark’s social stamina is  _ terrible, _ really. Boy needs three business days locked alone inside his room to recover from a 2 hour long party.” 

He’s not really joking, but he laughs nonetheless. It seems to make Lucas feel slightly better.

Yangyang, on the other hand, takes it in him to joke around. “Or maybe he was jealous,” he makes that trademark devil smile that gives the others chills. “He’d been happily chilling with Hyuck until you arrived and snatched him away.”

Lucas remembers the tight embrace he shared with Hyuck the other night, how they remained there even after saying hello, how his arms wrapped around Donghyuck’s shoulders while the younger hugged his waist. He remembers Mark’s bitter face.

“Like candy from a baby,” Hendery follows up on the joke, sighing. “Truly barbaric what you did there, Xuxi.”

It’s clearly a joke, especially by the way everyone starts laughing immediately. Kun tells them to stop fooling around and finally get ready, because they have to be at the filming set of a live show in an hour, and there’s no time to lose.

It’s clearly a joke, but Lucas can’t stop thinking about it.

– _🎈_ _🎈_ _🎈_ –

Wong Lucas should be everything Mark despises.

He should be a demanding, self-entitled snobby diva, someone difficult to get along with and rude for no apparent reason. He should be one of those famous people whose fame got to their heads. Conceited, cold and impersonal during interviews, he should walk out of them if he didn’t like the questions, or answer nothing but lies manufactured by his label. Lucas should be a selfish, close-minded jerk and so much worse, so Mark could have a genuine excuse not to want to engage with him. 

Unfortunately for him, he isn’t.

Wong Lucas is actually an amazing person. 

He’s quite lovely and down to earth, and everyone who’s ever crossed paths with him agree that it’s easy to talk to him, even easier to work with. He’s one of those famous people you forget are famous; he’s outgoing and hilarious at interviews, taking genuine interest on listening to what he’s being asked and answering honestly. He’s selfless and far more open-minded than Mark thought him to be, and overall such an entire sweetheart it makes it hard not to like him.

It’s terrible.

Mark thinks all of this as he watches the live show from a dressing room. They’d been invited to make a guest appearance on  _ The Moon Show,  _ a  late-night talk show created and hosted by Moon Taeil, comedian, writer and producer. Trigger The Fever had already guest-starred on this show twice, so coming here wasn’t new nor scary. Taeyong had told them everything anyway— that they would be the last guests to show up, that they would sing one or two songs, that it would be great promotion for the album.

Except he forgot to say one thing, and Mark finds himself in the dressing room, staring at the large TV casting the live show he’s about to go in—

And Wong Lucas is on the screen.

“Who would’ve thought!” Jaemin says somewhere behind him. His voice sounds muffled, and Mark turns around to look at him only to find him slouched over the couch, eating chips while waiting and watching the show. “We used to talk about all of us being on this show together one day and now we kinda are.”

“Not really together, though,” Jeno replies, getting his makeup done by a staff member Mark had never really seen before.

Renjun sighs. “At least we all made it.”

He knows they don’t mean it that way, but it makes Mark feel a sting on his chest.

Jaemin turns the volume up.

“... it was a very special night for all of us,” the camera is focused on a blonde boy as he speaks. Mark recognizes him from the other night at the party, thinks his name is Xiaojun, See The V’s leader. “I think none of us could even  _ sleep _ the night before.”

Taeil appears on the screen then, smiling. “Were you nervous? I mean, SM is a  _ big _ arena!”

The band on-screen nod effusively, like they can remember pretty well just how big the entire place was. All of the people screaming their names. It’d been insane.

“I was really  _ really  _ nervous when we first went on that stage. I didn’t have too much confidence, to be honest,” Lucas says from his spot next to Xiaojun, a shy smile on his lips. “A lot of the nervousness came from the fact that I really wanted to put my best foot forward, you know? We’ve all been working hard for so long and I didn’t want to let anyone down, especially not my bandmates.”

A loud  _ aww _ echoes in between the audience. Lucas’s friends pat his back and side hug him after saying that.

Taeil smiles at him. “Well, you certainly didn’t. Everyone’s calling it the best punk-rock concert of the year— and the year isn’t even over yet!”

“We are so thankful for that,” Yangyang bows his head uncharacteristically shy. “We’re still a relatively new group, but we’ve been received amazingly.”

“If we’re here today, it’s thanks to all the people supporting us,” Hendery says, placing a hand to his heart. “Those who were here from the start and those who’ve joined along the way… We owe it all to you.”

“You guys rock!” Lucas intervenes, a bright smile adorning his face, arms up in the air. “Rock more than we do! I love you!”

More  _ aww _ s and cheering and applause. Taeil says something along the lines of “ _ I like this kid’s enthusiasm! _ ” and moves onto making a small promotion for their new album  _ Take Over The Moon _ , talking about the tracks, the sound and where to find it. The usual stuff.

“That is such a Xuxi thing to say,” Hyuck laughs from the place he’s getting his hair fixed.

Jaemin nods. “Really, he hasn’t changed at all.”

“Remember when we were trainees and he cried after receiving his first fan letter?” Renjun recalls, smiling a little.

“He taped it on the wall next to his bed,” Jeno remembers. “It remained there until the day he left. I wonder if he still has it.”

“Bet he does.”

Is it just Mark, or are they talking more and more about him each day? It’s ridiculous.

Knocking saves him before he breaks.

A crew member peeks her head inside the room. “See The V will perform a song, then we’re going on a commercial break. After that, you’ll be going live,” the woman announces so the band can get ready, and then she’s out and ready to monitor some other aspects of the show.

Mark turns off the TV, without saying anything, and just heads outside the room, hoping his friends will follow.

– _🎈_ _🎈_ _🎈_ –

They’re good.

Mark had already heard them before– on the radio, on videos online– but never really live. All four band members are distributed nicely on the small stage next to the filming set, playing a song Mark doesn’t know the name of but that sounds like something he would’ve had on his playlist on his early teens.

Lucas’s on the right side of the stage, standing exactly in front of where Mark waits behind the curtains. Bright red lights above him cast a shadow on his face that accentuate his features, thick brows focused on his hands around the neck of his guitar. His hair is parted on one side and swept back, giving him the look of an old-Hollywood icon (if any of them ever had cyan colored hair), and his skin is glistening from the heat of the lights of the studio. The tension and relaxation of his body as he keeps time and gets absorbed in the music is nothing short of hypnotic.

Lucas looks exactly like he belongs on that stage, clearly knowing what he's doing on that guitar.

The song ends with a high note from Xiaojun and a crash hit from Yangyang’s drums. It makes the audience inside the studio cheer and clap, an echo of  _ See The V! See The V! See The V!  _ roaring around the room as the band catch their breaths and raise their hands to wave to as many fans as they can.

Especially Lucas. He even walks down the stage and past the security tape on the floor, the one that indicates fans not to step any further, just to high five a few of them and accept fan letters.

The bright red LIVE broadcast sign at the back of the room goes off, and Mark sees a few staff members walk up to the band and help them with their instruments. 

One of them is a small man Mark recognizes instantly, and he has to actually stop himself from running up to him, wrap him in a tight hug and say  _ Ten hyung!  _ like he used to back in the day. He really wants to, but Ten walks directly to Lucas, so Mark simply remains standing there, on his spot behind the curtains. He sees as the older almost literally pulls Lucas away from the fans, telling him to go backstage once and for all, and the guitarist pouts and protests with a loud  _ Ten ge! _ but still obeys. He’s so concentrated in waving goodbye to the fans that, when he walks backstage, he’s not even looking.

That’s how he accidentally bumps into Mark.

“Oh,” Lucas says, bowing unnecessarily low. “I’m sorry! Didn’t see you there.”

The other attempts to smile, but he won’t even look at him. “It’s fine.”

“Oi, Xuxi!” a voice behind them calls, and Hyuck jogs up to them with a smile on his face. As soon as he meets them, he reaches a hand up to pinch Lucas’s cheek. “You guys were great out there!”

Lucas smiles bright to the touch, like a puppy getting pet and being praised.

Mark avoids looking at the exchange and clears his throat awkwardly. It almost seems like Lucas notices this and is affected by it, because suddenly the smile on his face is gone and he’s taking a step back, making Hyuck complain over the cut down touch. The taller looks like he wants to say something, but words get stuck on his throat.

“Trigger The Fever, we need you on set!” a staff member yells.

Mark follows the instruction immediately, without saying goodbye or taking a last glance at the other in front of him. Donghyuck curses at him under his breath (“ _ This rude kid! _ ”) before praising Lucas one last time, saying  _ bye-bye _ , and following his bandmates into the set, too.

All before Lucas can even say anything.

– _🎈_ _🎈_ _🎈_ –

He can’t take his eyes off Mark.

The rest of his bandmates are long gone, locked inside their designated dressing room. Their appearance on the show is over and now they get to relax, to be on the other side of the screen like the audience at home, all of them probably watching the rest of the live show while sitting down on a couch and snacking on different kinds of chips and soda. All of them except Lucas, who’s still standing somewhere behind the curtains that lead to the set.

And he can’t take his eyes off Mark.

It’s not that he’s doing anything particularly special or important, nor does he have something on his face that no one has dared to tell him of. He’s really just talking– about how far the band has come, about their new album, about their writing process. Taeil keeps complimenting them on their amazing discography, says just how much their fans seem to love their songs and relate to them. 

He’s just talking, but something about it makes Lucas want to listen to him talk forever.

“Whenever we prepare something for a new song, we just try to focus on being ourselves rather than focus on it being a hit,” he shrugs, smiling slightly. It’s probably the first smile Lucas has seen on Mark. It suits him. “We just want to be ourselves whenever we show off new stuff. And we know that our fans love us for who we are, they want us to be us. We always hope for the best but never really try and chase after what people might like. So hopefully we get the recognition we do, but when we don’t, we just know that we did us.”

There’s something so different about the way he expresses himself from the image Lucas had built of him inside his head. It’s not that he’d thought wrong of Mark– not really, not even once. He just took him for the kind of quiet, discreet leader, one that would rather have the rest of his bandmates talk to the press while he only focused on making music.

Instead, Mark comes off as pretty approachable. He talks humbly and smiles shyly, and when Taeil goes off on giving him the entire credit for the band’s amazing lyrics, he shakes his head politely.

“I don’t write them all myself,” he says a little embarrassed, even though their album has written  _ Lyrics by MARK _ all over it. “Sure there are times where I write about what I’m living at the moment, because that way I’m free to express myself truthfully. But there’s a lot of group effort too– we usually bounce off ideas where we would imagine something or we would think of an idea and then make that come true. Most songs we discuss them together and we agree on it together to come up with the lyrics.”

“Oi, our Mark is too modest,” Jeno, sitting next to him, teases him and nudges him slightly. “He’s a writing machine. All of his lyrics come from his heart, which is what makes them so good.”

The rest of the band members nod in agreement, and even from his spot behind the cameras and all of the staff, Lucas can see the younger’s ears turning red. It’s a totally different person– the one on set right now and the one Lucas bumped into a party a few days ago, and once again earlier today. Mark looks more relaxed, at peace, like he doesn’t have a care in the world. He’s smiling and talking a lot and even joking around with Hyuck, and Lucas just can’t keep a thought out from his head.

He wants to get to know this Mark.

“It's a lie if we say we're not tired,” Mark says after Taeil asks them about the fact that they’ve been active for three years, constantly delivering content and going on tour. “But we always get a lot of energy through the fans supporting us... They’re our main motivation to keep doing what we’re doing.”

The band’s fans in between the audience make a loud  _ Awww _ sound that’s accompanied by cheering and applause. They’re a lot louder than they were for See The V, but Lucas doesn’t blame them– these are people that have been supporting the band for  _ years,  _ some of them even knowing them since they were simple trainees. He smiles at the thought of any of them being the one who’d sent him his very first fan letter, the one he still keeps taped next to his wall to this day. He hopes that, whoever they are, they can still be out there supporting him, and he almost feels like apologizing for taking so long to come back.

At least he’s made it. 

Before he knows it, Trigger The Fever’s interview is done and cheered for, and soon enough the members are set upon the small stage next to the filming set and playing two of their most popular songs. Lucas loves them both, and he knows the lyrics like the back of his hand, so he sings along the fans and moves his head to the beat of Mark’s guitar.

He’s so good.

He wants to get to know this Mark.

It’s not until the show’s over and wrapped up that he can finally go out and look for him. Trying to avoid being seen by either Kun or Ten, Lucas sneaks out from his dressing room and around the filming set. He bumps into a few fans that ask for pictures and autographs, to which he happily complies (he even finds  _ See The V’s number one fan in the entire world, _ or so the kid says. His name is Chenle, and Lucas has to hold himself back from pinching his cheeks and calling him cute), but it isn’t until ten minutes of looking that he finally finds them.

Lucas spots the band at the parking lot of the location shooting, gathered right next to the van that will take them home, and they’re climbing up one by one.

“Mark! Wait a second!” he says, jogging to get there, though he manages to reach them within five steps.

It’s a miracle Mark actually turns around and looks at him. “... Yeah?”

“I just wanted to say,” Lucas mumbles, slightly out of breath. “That I hope we can become friends.”

Mark looks at him like he’s just insulted him and his entire career, the frown on his face being the only answer Lucas gets.

But not the one he’ll take. “Also, I wanted to make one thing clear– there’s nothing going on between me and Hyuck!”

Donghyuck, who was just walking by and about to hop into the van, turns around at the mention of his name. 

Both he and Mark let out a confused “... What?” at the other’s statement.

“I know it may be confusing because we’re both very clingy people, but I swear it’s not like that! I mean, yeah, we kissed once… But we were 15 and it was a dare! I swear you don’t have to worry about me!”

They must be going simultaneously deaf, because both let out another, slightly more outraged, “ _ What?! _ ”

Lucas starts growing frustrated. “Isn’t that why you hate me?” he asks, big eyes focused on Mark almost like he’s begging for something. “Your crush on Hyuck?”

The only answer he gets to that is Donghyuck’s booming laughter that resonates around the emptying parking lot.

Just like the time he’d been praised on the show, the tips of Mark’s ears turn bright red, but this time his cheeks do the same to match. The frown on his face deepens and, instead of answering, he simply turns around and climbs into the van, closing the door shut with a loud noise even though Donghyuck’s still outside, bent over with laughter.

Lucas couldn’t be any more confused.

“Xuxi,” his friend says between giggles, reaching out a hand to lean against Lucas like looking for support. “Just what the fuck are you talking about?”

“I just thought...”

Donghyuck catches his breath enough to stand up straight. “I assure you, man, Mark would sell me to Satan for a bag of  _ Skittles _ before ever having a crush on me,” he says, giving the other small pats on his back. “That should be the least of your worries.”

Lucas pouts. “I just want to be his friend.”

The younger’s laughter dies down gradually, especially after hearing the last bit. His touch on Lucas’s back becomes softer, a lot more reassuring. “I know,” Hyuck offers his friend a small smile, but his eyes seem to hold a secret he can’t tell. “Mark… He has his reasons to be shy. You just have to keep trying, okay? You’ll get there.”

Lucas nods, though he’s still wary of the way Donghyuck looks at him, almost like he feels guilty. Despite the few years they lost contact, he’s known him long enough to know he’s hiding something, but Lucas isn’t one to push. If Hyuck ever wants to tell him what’s wrong, he will.

Besides, he’s cheering for Lucas. It’s probably nothing.

A staff member calls for the younger as she makes her way into the shotgun seat of the van, stating that they have to go or else they’ll be late for their next appointment. Donghyuck replies with an  _ Aye, aye, _ before turning back to Lucas, hugging him goodbye, and reassuring him that Mark will come around sooner or later.

He’s right. 

All he has to do is keep trying.

– _🎈_ _🎈_ _🎈_ –

Meeting again is inevitable.

Now that their album has remained on the #1 spot for four consecutive weeks, See The V is practically  _ everywhere. _ Talk-shows, magazines, the radio, TV ads— sometimes together, sometimes one or two of them, but the world keeps talking about the band like they’re unlike anything they’ve seen before. One day, Mark even stumbles upon an article titled  _ SOLD OUT ARENAS, GROWING FANDOM: IS SEE THE V THE NEW TRIGGER THE FEVER? _

He closes his laptop shut before even reading a single word of it.

Mark has been bumping into Lucas everywhere, and it’s getting harder to ignore him each day. Whether it’s on photoshoot sets, parties or music festivals, he finds himself staring into big caramel eyes that always try to greet him.

Most times Mark ends up leaving, some others just blatantly ignoring him.

It’s probably not the best idea– Donghyuck’s words run around the back of his head most of the time, and when they don’t, Donghyuck himself is there to repeat them.  _ You’re not protecting yourself from anything by avoiding Xuxi. If anything, you’re only making things worse. _

And he knows, he really does. He knows that acting this way only gives out more reasons for him to end up being the bad guy, but he can’t help it. The second he realizes Lucas is standing in front of him, all big smiles and warm hugs and good intentions, he can’t help but feel sick to his stomach. He has to get away from it.

If he gets too close, he’ll break.

And Mark can’t bring himself to break.

– _🎈_ _🎈_ _🎈_ –

The good thing about going to parties is the people. Meeting them and having fun together, sharing an experience, having new friends.

The bad thing about going to parties is also the people– because not everyone is a good person nor has the best intentions.

It doesn’t help that Lucas is really freaking naive.

He makes his way upstairs as steadily as he can, following the directions Jung Jaehyun– drama actor and fashion magazine model– told him to get to the bathroom. Or at least he thinks he’s following them, he’s not really sure he heard him right. Did he say right or left? Did he even really say upstairs?

Oh man, he’s really drunk.

Lucas’s skin feels hot and quite literally throbbing. Although he’s met a lot of great people at this place tonight, for some reason they keep asking him to stick around and have  _ one more drink. _ Though now that he thinks about it, somehow one turned to ten and now he’s feeling the floor move underneath him.

His phone buzzes in his pocket as he finally stands at the top of the stairs, balancing himself enough on the last step to not roll down. The brightness of the screen hurts his eyes as he pulls out the device to check the new message.

**kun ge – 2:05**

_ Why did Ten just see on Instagram that you’re still  _ _ at that party  _

_ and not home like the rest of your bandmates?  _

Oh, right. It’s been roughly an hour since his friends went back to their apartment.

**kun ge – 2:10**

_ It’s dangerous to be alone there, Xuxi,  _

_ you don’t know any of those people.  _

**kun ge – 2:12**

_ Tell me the address. I’ll call you a cab. _

Lucas sighs. Truthfully, he should have been home an hour ago, or he should have at least sent Kun a text telling him he’d be staying longer. He knows he means well, but his manager worries too much… These are all nice people! Nice people who’ve made sure he’s having fun and that he has his glass full and that want him to stay here with them a little more. It’s okay! When he actually feels like leaving, maybe his new friends can take him home or help him call a taxi.

He’ll be okay.

Lucas put his phone back in his pocket, ignoring the text, before pushing open the door in front of him without hesitation.

This isn’t the bathroom.

– _🎈_ _🎈_ _🎈_ –

Mark doesn’t even want to be here.

He’s currently locked inside one of the dozen guest rooms inside Jung Jaehyun’s home, avoiding the frenzy that these end-of-the-season parties held by popular models usually turn into. 

Thank God the walls are soundproof.

He can only imagine the disaster this house would look like in the morning: empty packages of chips, dips, and other food covering every surface of the floor, discarded liquor bottles spilled on the couch or the tables. Mark knows because he remembers the last time he and Johnny had to come by this place to pick Jaehyun up the morning after a fashion show afterparty. They’d found all kinds of trash littering the floors and the model laying upon the couch, snoring softly and wearing a shirt that was definitely not his. He’d been tangled in between a pile of limbs belonging to a stark-naked man and a lacey panty clad woman.

Never again, Mark had thought that day.

But Jaehyun had insisted so much for Yuta to come, who’d insisted for Johnny to come, who’d then insisted for Mark to come— and now the younger found himself locked inside a room on his own. Where even is Johnny hyung, now that he thinks about it? He better not be fooling around with any of the models, or else Mark’s going to call a cab and go home.

He doesn’t even want to be here anyway.

He scrolls down his phone mindlessly, in an attempt to make time go by faster. It’s a little past 2 AM and he’s already feeling tired, all energy drained from his body after he’d spent the day at the gym with Jeno and then practicing all evening with the rest of the band. Taeyong had managed to get them booked at  _ Empathy 2020– _ one of the biggest music festivals in the country– and they’ve been rehearsing like crazy ever since. The festival will be held in two more months, but every second counts if they want to stand out in between all the amazing punk-rock bands that assist that same event.

The life of an artist isn’t easy. Mark knows he works as hard as the next guy but, somehow, he can’t help but always feel like he’s lacking, like he needs to make up for something. He just doesn’t know what.

…  _ Anyway _ , Instagram is boring. 

All he’s seeing from the people he follows are different angles from the dancing crowd downstairs, even a story of Jaehyun downing a bottle that was not even half empty yet. He catches a glimpse of Johnny somewhere behind him, getting dragged away by someone Mark doesn’t recognize because of how fast they go. It sends a chill down his back and he gets out from the app immediately, scared of what he might find next if he keeps swiping. 

Instead, he taps on Twitter, changes his account from his main, verified one to his private, where only his bandmates and brother follow. It’s the one he uses to lurk around, see what their fans are up to and what they think of them or their music. Most of the time he finds encouraging words and threads about the mole on his cheek, and it makes him smile and feel better after a long, hard day. Once in a while he stumbles upon hate, too, but he always scrolls past it and tries not to think too much of it. He doesn’t need to mop about it, or to doubt himself anymore than he already does, so he simply ignores it.

It’s nice when he sees people defending them, though. There’s this one kid, Jisung’s his name, who has over twenty thousand followers and is always tweeting nice things about them— especially Nana. Mark likes his account because it’s amazing just how up to date he always is, and it’s that kind of fans the ones who make it all worth it.

Make him worthy.

He’s so absorbed in his thoughts and the blue bird app that, if it weren’t because of the loud bass suddenly making the floor underneath him tremble, he wouldn’t have noticed someone had just entered the room.

Mark looks up from his phone in surprise, holding it close to his chest like he’s been caught watching something dirty and he’s trying to hide it.

He meet eyes with a pair of big caramel eyes that try to greet him.

“... Hi,” Lucas is standing by the door, his voice barely audible under the loud music spilling into the room from behind him. “This isn’t the bathroom.”

On that last sentence, Mark can definitely hear the slurring.

He’s about to say something along the lines of  _ Clearly not, can you please leave?  _ but Donghyuck’s words chase after him, stop him before he can even open his mouth.

After thinking about it for a second, Mark tries to be as polite as he can. “No, it’s not,” he says, raising his voice to be heard over the music. “But you can use the one in here. Right there,” he points to the door to his right, at the opposite end of where Lucas stands.

The other hums, staring at the white door that seems to be too far away from him. It takes him a whole minute to actually start heading there.

Mark makes an effort to go back to his thing, scroll down his phone like he’s not hyper-aware of the drunk giant stumbling past him. But it’s impossible not to notice the smell of alcohol practically radiating off of Lucas’s skin as he walks by, and Mark’s a little surprised to find himself worrying about it.

That’s normal, though, right? It’s normal for him to worry, because he knows firsthand just how chaotic Jaehyun’s parties can get. There’s always too many people and too much to drink, and an environment that instead of stopping you, encourages you to keep going. Add on top of that the fact that Lucas seems like the kind of person who can't say no. How many drinks could he have been offered tonight, that he’d felt obliged to accept?

The thought alone makes Mark dizzy.

A loud  _ bang _ pulls him out from inside his head. If Mark weren’t completely sober and worrying over someone he’s not even friends with, he probably would’ve laughed out loud. Lucas had bumped into the closed door, the impact so hard it made him stumble back and fall flat on his ass.

Worst thing is, he doesn’t even react to it. Lucas simply blinks a few times, like still trying to process what just happened.

Now Mark has two options. One, he could stand up from his spot on the bed and help the guy out. He could crack open the door for him and help him up so he can get inside the bathroom before he can’t hold it in anymore and ends up doing his business all over the floor. Two, he could just ignore him. Not his problem.

Except, Mark’s not the douchebag he’s been acting like the past few weeks.

“Hold up, man,” he jogs towards him, leaving his phone discarded somewhere over the bed.

He offers Lucas a hand and pulls with all of his strength, trying to help the other up. It’s a miracle he cooperates, though he still trips a little on his own feet and ends up leaning against Mark. He’s heavy and reeks of alcohol, and once they manage to stumble inside the bathroom, the younger faces the toilet in front of him and thinks of what comes next.

He did  _ not  _ think this through.

“Uh,” he mumbles, for some reason feeling his cheeks burn. “Can you...? Because I don’t think I should… I mean, I won’t…”

Mark feels like this is the end for him. Maybe being a douchebag was the right choice back there, he thinks, because  _ no.  _ There’s  _ no  _ way in hell he’s about to dive his hand inside Lucas’s pants and help him—

It’s almost a relief when the other starts laughing. 

Almost, because it actually makes Mark feel even more flustered. 

“I don’t- don’t have to pee,” Lucas giggles, the action making his body lean more and more against Mark. “I just… Wanted to be alone and splash some water on my face.”

Oh, thank God.

Deciding it’s best to not say anything about the traumatizing picture Mark had already built inside his head, he simply moves back two steps so Lucas can lean against the sink instead. The older sputters out a small  _ thankyou _ before reaching out to pull at one of the handles, water instantly coming out from the silver faucet and into his hands. 

Mark watches carefully as Lucas bends down his ridiculously tall frame to reach the sink, both hands collecting a puddle of water that he brings up to his face. It must be cold because he immediately frowns, but he does it again two or three times to help himself regain at least one of his senses. Lucas puts both his hands at the side of the sink for support, just until the room can stop spinning around him. 

Through the mirror and under the bright lights, Mark can finally take a good look at him— he looks tired, drowsy, eyeliner slightly smudged around his eyes and blue hair messy and sticking out in all directions. He looks so out of himself Mark nearly reaches out to ask if he’s okay, but then he remembers him saying  _ Just wanted to be alone and splash water on my face, _ and decides that it’s probably best for him to leave.

But just as he’s about to step out and close the door behind him, Lucas lets out a slurred  _ ohsshit _ , and next thing they know, he’s running and gagging into the toilet.

Now Mark definitely  _ can’t  _ leave. 

He somehow ends up on toilet duty, rubbing Lucas’s back as he throws up two more times, forehead pressed to the toilet bowl. 

“Fuck, man, how much did you drink?” Mark can’t help but ask, though not really waiting for an answer.

Lucas groans. “I don’t… I don’t know,” he gags, but nothing comes out anymore. “Jaehyun hyung said not to count.”

Mark sighs, shaking his head slightly as Lucas pulls down the lever on the toilet. Seems like he’s done. “Don’t ever listen to Jaehyun hyung,” he says, almost like he’s reprimanding a younger brother. “He’s a cool guy and all, just not someone to get drunk with. Sorry you had to learn that the hard way.”

He means it, because the slouching guy next to him looks so miserable it’s almost painful.

“Where are your friends?” he asks, looking around him as if they were to magically appear inside the bathroom any second now.

Lucas shakes his head. “Not here. They went home.”

“And they left you here?” Mark almost can’t believe it. “Alone? At a place where you don’t know anyone?”

“I wanted to stay,” the other pouts, like he really doesn’t want Mark to blame his friends for leaving. Because really, they’d insisted a whole awful lot for Lucas to go back home with them. But in between the music, the dancing, and the two shots of tequila some random girl had handed him, Lucas had near convinced himself that he’d wanted to be here.

Now? He’s kinda considering it.

Mark purses his lips, thinking. What are his options anyway? He can’t just leave him here to fend for himself, not in this state. His friends aren’t here to take him home and neither are Mark’s, which practically means Lucas is really on his own right now and that Mark’s the only person who sort of knows him and can look after him.

_ What an honor. _

The younger sighs, knowing what he has to do but not necessarily looking forward doing it. He grabs Lucas’s arms and tries pulling him up, but the older only giggles. The touch yanking him feels like that of a small puppy biting down and trying to pull onto his clothes. 

“Man, please cooperate!” Mark complains.

Lucas, still smiling, takes in a deep breath. “You’re kinda cute, you know?”

Mark’s cheeks turn a deep pink and he gulps heavily, closing his eyes only for a few seconds to compose himself. He did not just say that. Mark acts like he didn’t hear it before finally reopening his eyes and trying to get the other up once again.

“Here we go.”

A grunt leaves his lips as he reaches for Lucas’s arms one more time, wraps him around his shoulders, and pulls them both up as hard as he can without actually hurting the other. He stumbles forward and nearly smacks his head against the sink, but soon enough he’s up on both his feet, with someone a whole foot taller than him leaning on him for support. With shaky but careful steps, Mark tries to make Lucas follow him out of the bathroom and into the room, at least until they reach the bed so he can retrieve his phone and call Johnny. 

When he’s finally slouched over the mattress and drifting into unconsciousness, as Mark pulls out his phone to call for backup, Lucas speaks again. 

“Mark?”

“Yeah?”

“Why do you hate me?”

His voice is quiet and raspy, and Mark’s fingers freeze right after hitting the send button on the message for his manager, eyes fixed on the blinking text cursor that remains there. He feels his throat dry and his heart race, and he almost wishes he were as drunk as Lucas to avoid this conversation.

But he can’t, and the other might not even remember it in the morning, so he answers. “Don’t be dumb. I don’t hate you.”

Lucas pouts. “Yes, you do!” he whines, voice changing completely to one that resembles a kid throwing a tantrum. “You’re always avoiding or ignoring me! When I walk into the room, you won’t even look at me…. And you called me dumb, just now!”

The last statement actually pulls a small laugh out of Mark. “That’s because you  _ are _ dumb,” he pokes his finger on Lucas’s forehead, causing the older to dramatically fall back over the bed on his back. “I don’t hate you, it’s… Far more complicated than that, Lucas.”

A second of silence. 

Then, a small mumble. “Xuxi.”

“Sorry?”

Lucas turns his head over the bed, just enough so he can look at Mark in the eye. “Call me Xuxi.”

The younger huffs. “I don’t think we’re close enough for me to call you that.”

“Okay, then. Call me Yukhei.”

“Just how many names do you have?” Mark laughs.

“Too many.”

This is, by far, the longest conversation they’ve ever shared, Mark realizes as the door to the room suddenly cracks open and cuts it short. Johnny walks in looking more than a little disheveled– his tie is loose and his hair is all messed up, and it probably means  _ He  _ was _ fooling around,  _ the thought alone perturbing the younger.

Mark doesn’t even ask, just nods his head towards the big baby lying down on the bed next to him and– oh, he’s fallen asleep. Johnny takes onto the task of picking Lucas up (thank God he exercises) and carries him outside the room, down the stairs and into their car. 

Once they’re safe inside and with their seatbelts on, Johnny tells Mark to look for the other’s phone, see if there’s anyone they can call to get an address they can drop him off at. Mark finds the device on the other’s front pocket and, as he presses the home button, 27 missed calls in red text adorn the screen _._ _Yikes_. 

Mark clicks on the contact name.

Almost directly after the first ring, the person on the other end picks up with a relieved gasp. 

He starts speaking really fast in what Mark thinks must be Chinese. The man sounds slightly panicked over the line and, even though he doesn’t understand, Mark almost feels guilty– like all that yelling is directed towards him and he should feel sorry for making the other worry.

“Um, sorry, hyung,” the younger cuts in, trying to let the other know he can’t understand him. “This isn’t Lucas.”

“... Oh my God,” the man finally speaks in a language Mark knows, and he sounds like he’s about to have a heart attack. “Who is this? Is Xuxi okay? Did something happen to him? Where are you?”

They’re so many questions Mark doesn’t even know which one to answer. He opts for the first. “It’s Mark.”

“Mark? Mark Lee?” 

“Yeah, actually,” the younger says, surprised. “How did you know?”

“I‘ve heard a lot about you, Mark Lee,” the man suddenly says. Mark doesn’t know how to feel about that. “Is Xuxi okay? Please tell me he didn’t cause you any trouble.”

He takes a look next to him, to the young man snuggling peacefully against the car door as he sleeps, just slightly snoring through his open mouth. It almost makes him laugh. “Nah, don’t worry. He’s okay, just shitfaced.”

“Excuse me?”

“Uh, really drunk, I meant.”

“Dear Lord,” the other sighs. He sounds the exact same way Johnny does when the band fucks up big time, like he’s already planning on how to whoop their ass. It’s kinda scary. “Models are up to no good, I told Ten, but he insisted that they should go to that party and I just…” he keeps talking, but Mark trails off at the mention of the name.

He remembers seeing him at the filming set the other day, but it’s been a long time since he could really talk to Ten. The man’s departure from Dream Records had had a strong impact on the younger, for he considered him one of the very few people inside the company he could trust. Mark understands that he had to leave (even encouraged him back then to do so) because of the way he used to be mistreated, yet the most selfish part of him can’t help but wonder if things would be easier for him if Ten was still around.

Not that he dislikes Taeyong hyung or his work– no, he’s great! But Ten… He was practically another brother for him.

_ This must be Ten hyung’s husband, Kun,  _ Mark thinks then, smiling a little to himself while still listening to the man on the phone. 

That’s how he remembers that he should probably be listening to him instead of going full throwback thursday inside his head. Kun’s saying “... And then the others go and leave him there alone? They’re kids, I tell you,  _ kids _ !”

Mark doesn’t know if he should say anything (“ _ We’re all older than 20, hyung _ ,” he feels like reminding him), but considering the manager’s panicked state he decides it’s better to stay quiet and just keep listening.

Kun finally sighs. “Sorry, sorry. Now I’m just rambling. Can you tell me exactly where you are? I’ll go pick him up right now.”

“Ah, don’t worry,” the younger smiles even though Kun can’t see him. “Johnny hyung was at the party with me and we’re already leaving so we can take him home. Actually called to see if you could give us an address.”

“Oh, that’s so sweet of you,” relief helps Kun’s voice settle down, like he can finally release the breath he’d been holding. “I’d appreciate that, thank you very much, guys.”

He then recites to Mark the address of an apartment building that’s fairly close to where they find themselves at, and after saying thank you again they say goodbye and finally hang up. Johnny starts driving, following the directions the younger got from Kun, saying they’d be there in no time.

Mark finally leans back on his seat then, just realizing how tired he actually feels. He’d been so focused on looking after Lucas that he’d forgotten about the exhaustion he’d been feeling before, it finally hitting now that his guard is low. He turns to the side to look at the other– head rested against the car window, eyes closed like he’s having a nice dream. He looks so peaceful and calm Mark almost feels like falling asleep, too, but he tells himself not to. Not until Lucas’s back home safe.

It’s weird, to find himself caring so much for the other. After weeks of avoiding him, ignoring him and turning his head the other way, it’s weird to find himself sitting down next to Lucas like they’re friends on a road trip. It’s weird to look at him and think  _ I hope you feel better in the morning _ like he’d do with Hyuck, or Jeno, or Jaemin or Renjun. To remember Lucas saying he just wants to be friends, and wondering what would happen if Mark said yes.

It’s all weird, thinking how things could be different if only  _ that _ hadn’t happened.

Mark almost feels like saying sorry.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He has to fix this, he has to somehow pull himself out from the mess he got himself into in the first place. 

Hyuck and Mark live together at a small place a few blocks down their record company. 

They’re the only two members of the band with a real house instead of an apartment, something that cost them a lot of begging to both their parents and the staff. They managed to afford this place between the two of them barely a year ago, and even though they have to show up at the company regularly to train their vocals and sound, this still managed to become their primary practice space.

He’s in the middle of rehearsal when his phone dings.

Mark ignores it when he hears it because it’s probably just another Twitter notification, or a text from Yuta asking him out tonight. If it were important, Johnny would call or come by in person, so the younger doesn’t worry about it and simply tells his members _From the top!_

They’ve been rehearsing since early hours of the morning, going over the setlist they’ll play in two months at the music festival. They might be being a little over the top with the rehearsals, but they just can’t help it– this is Empathy 2020 they’re talking about. They’d all been there before, but always just as viewers; arriving early to get as close to the main stage as they could and dreaming of performing there someday.

Now _someday_ was an actual date marked in red on their calendar, and they have to prepare so they can do their best.

That’s why they don’t take their first actual break until Mark’s and Jeno’s fingers hurt from the strings, Hyuck’s voice has gone hoarse, Jaemin’s arms hurt from all the drumming and Renjun’s hands can’t keep up with the songs anymore. 

Just then, they take a break.

As Jeno and Jaemin head out to get something to eat, Mark picks up his phone from where he’d left it before and plops down on the couch, pushing the home button to read whatever notifications have piled up. There’s nothing out of the ordinary– Twitter tags and Instagram mentions, and yes, a text from Yuta inviting him out for drinks tonight and an offer for free tickets for his next concert in a few weeks. Same old.

But when Mark scrolls down the end of his notifications, he sees half of a text from an unknown number. He slides the rectangle to open it, and words appear on his screen immediately, completing the message.

**+86 XXX XXX – 12:29**

_hey thanks 4 taking care of me last night !! must have been terrible 4 u so im sorry… Ur a gr8 guy mark :)_

_\- xuxi🎈_

Mark blinks at the screen a few times, not knowing what to do. He looks around him as if someone were watching him, judging his every move, but next to him Donghyuck is immersed into his own phone and Renjun is near falling asleep on the beanbag.

No danger detected but still— what is Mark supposed to do?

He’s already opened and marked the message as read, so he can’t just pretend he didn’t see it. Something inside him tells him to _fuck it, just don’t reply_ (because what is he supposed to say?)... but after everything that happened last night, can he still keep acting like he doesn’t care?

Mark takes a deep breath then, makes a decision. 

He starts typing down on the keyboard, coming up with a polite reply, yet keeping it neutral. 

**You – 13:48**

_Hi, sorry for the late reply, we were rehearsing._

_Don’t worry about last night, man, just did what anyone would do._

Maybe he should say something else.

**You – 13:49**

_Hope you’re feeling good :)_

Fuck, was that smiley face too much? Mark panics right after hitting send. Fuck, fuck, fuck. Can you unsend a message before the other person sees?

Before he can figure it out, though, luck proves not to be on his side, because small gray letters that read _Seen_ appear on his screen, and then three dots start jumping around on the top left corner of his keyboard. Mark feels the urge to lock his phone and throw it to the other side of the room. 

The reply is quicker than him, though.

**Lucas – 13:50**

_my head hurts_

_also kun ge threatened to keep me locked under_

_key from now on 🤣 but other than that im good_

_are u still rehearsing? i’d like to take you out ❤️🎈_

If Mark keeps frowning at the screen like that, he’s going to grow old in less than a week. What does that last text mean? What’s with the red heart? And the little red balloon? What does it all mean?

Mark hadn’t felt so stressed over texting someone since he was 14. 

**You –13:54**

_Out?_

**Lucas – 13:54**

_yeah!! i was wondering if we could go out and get coffee?_

_i want to get to know you_

_it’s on me ofc! take it as a thank you for looking after me last night ❤️_

He feels like he’s going insane.

Mark stares at the other’s words in front of him, stares until the brightness on his screen dims down. The three bubble messages remain on his mind even after the screen has auto-locked, exclamation marks and red emojis burning into the back of his head like they’re something he’ll remember for the rest of his life.

He wants to get to know Mark.

How crazy is that?

Because even though Mark’s been, in Hyuck’s words, nothing but _rude_ to him ever since they first met, he still wants to go out with him and get to know him– _Mark!_ Lucas wants to meet him somewhere outside of their official schedules, sip on a cup of coffee next to him, and talk about all those things the media could never quite cover. He must be crazy.

What even crazier, though, it’s when Mark realizes– he doesn’t even know what he should know about Lucas.

Back when he left Dream Records, Mark had just been officially signed into the label, so they never really got to talk or meet properly until Yuta’s party all those weeks ago. Mark doesn’t know his full name ( _names_? He’d mentioned a few last night), his age (is he older than Mark? Younger?) or any of the random facts he should probably know.

Huh.

Pressing the home button on his phone and choosing to ignore the message for a few seconds, Mark taps on the browser app and then on the corner of the screen to open private tab– if he’s going to lurk, he better do it incognito.

He finds the basics pretty quickly.

_Wong Yukhei, (also known as Huang Xuxi or by his stage name Lucas, born January 25 1999), is a Hong Kong singer and songwriter, better known for being the lead guitarist of the Chinese punk-rock band See The V._

_The band first started to get popular by posting covers and original songs on Youtube, until one of Label V’s talent scouts, Qian Kun, discovered them playing at a small bar in Fujian, China and got them signed into the company. Their debut album ‘Feel The V’ was released earlier this year after their first few singles topped the charts in China for several consecutive weeks. Their second album, ‘Take Over The Moon’ was released this month, and critically acclaimed for truly showing the band’s true color._

Mark skims through the article on his screen, and then switches to a less official one he finds after scrolling down his Google searches. He takes one more look behind him, scared that Donghyuck might peek over his shoulder any second now and ask him what he’s doing on a website called _All You Need To Know About Asian Heartthrob Wong Lucas <3\. _

He could never explain that.

It’s not until a few more minutes of lurking and learning (Lucas’s favorite color, his favorite food, even his _blood type_ ) that Mark finally stops to ask himself– what is he even doing? It’s not like he’s going to actually accept going out with Lucas… is he? 

No, absolutely not. 

Mark shakes his head, trying to make himself snap out of it. It’s impossible. He can’t go out with Lucas and easily pretend like they can be friends and drink coffee together and get to know each other. It just can’t happen.

Not after _that_.

He gets back to the messages app on his phone and writes a quick reply, trying not to think too much of what he’s typing.

**You – 14:03**

_Sorry, we’ll be rehearsing all day today_

_Maybe another time_

**Lucas – 14:03**

_sure!! let’s keep in touch ❤️_

_fighting !! 🎈_

Mark stares at the screen, but doesn’t reply back.

He keeps thinking of the chat he and Lucas had even as Jaemin and Jeno come back with Thai food from their favorite place and he puts his phone away. As they eat and his friends start joking over dumb stuff, as they steal food from Renjun’s plate (poor boy did end up falling asleep on the couch), as they finish and go back to practicing from the top– Mark can’t get the conversation out of his head.

All he can think about is quick answers and red emojis, and it makes his heart sink.

– _🎈_ _🎈_ _🎈_ –

As Lucas said, they keep in touch.

Mark doesn’t know how it even keeps happening– who texts first, who replies, who keeps coming back to say something so the conversation doesn’t end there– but soon enough he finds himself replying to Lucas whenever he has free time.

It’s not even like they talk about anything important.

**Lucas – 17:38**

_bro i just caught a mewtwo on the way to this photoshoot_

**You – 17:40**

_youre kidding_

**Lucas – 17:40**

_[Image Attached]_

_brooooooo_

**You – 17:41**

_bro?!?!?!??_

Things like that.

At first, it’s really just casual conversation. Mark says he has practice and Lucas says he does too, and they both remind each other to rest well and drink enough water and that’s it. Sometimes Mark sends memes he finds on stan twitter that make the other reply with long keyboard smashes, and sometimes he receives videos of puppies cuddling that Lucas finds on Instagram. It’s all harmless, occasional chat.

Until it starts happening more and more often each day and, without him knowing, they being to really know each other. 

They talk about almost everything and nothing, sometimes even at the same time. They share random facts about each other in between interviews, talk about their first few albums after a photo shoot. Mark learns the meaning of Lucas’s favorite emoji one night after practice.

**Lucas – 22:21**

_red is my favorite color_

Mark knows, he read that online a few weeks ago.

**Lucas – 22:22**

_and u know that song, 99 red balloons? the goldfinger arrangement is my favorite song 🎈_

_i played it for my bandmates when i first joined the band_

_yangyang knew it too so he sang the german part hahaha it was lit!!!_

_after that we choose red as our band’s color_

_and on our first show we released red balloons to like, symbolize we were getting out there_

_it was great_

_it makes me happy to remember ❤️🎈_

It makes Mark happy to learn about it, too.

They laugh and bond over lots of things after that– music, movies, Pokemon, their members. Neither of them talk about their actual families, but they refer to their respective bands as if they were it.

Mark learns that Lucas is extremely close with all of the See The V members, even their staff. He talks about Kun and then about Ten (both of whom he refers to as _ge_ instead of _hyung_ ), and Mark asks about the latter because he’s been dying to ever since he saw him at the filming set a few weeks ago. Lucas says he’s doing good– he’s disgustingly in love, and he seems to like his job, and even though he’s always fighting Yangyang, they all get along great. Mark says he’s happy for him, and then they start talking about something else.

It becomes a routine.

He wakes up and goes to bed to a text from Lucas, and he doesn’t even notice how much he’s been doing it until someone points it out weeks later.

“Who do you keep texting so much?” Donghyuck asks one day after yet another late night practice. 

They’re cleaning up their practice room– which really just means they’re picking up visible wrappers and taking their empty cups and dirty dishes to the kitchen. The rest of their bandmates have just gone home, Hyuck and Mark left alone inside their house sharing a sweet silence that’s interrupted by the younger’s question.

Mark immediately locks his phone. “My mom,” he says, not even sparing Donghyuck a glance as he gets up from the couch and gets back to cleaning.

Unfortunately, his friend knows him better than that. “Right. We both know your mom isn’t a texter– and neither are you,” Hyuck shakes his head and closes his eyes, a hand to his heart. “Lying to your best friend… You hurt me, Canada.”

“Oi, don’t be dramatic,” Mark throws him the dirty napkin he just picked up.

“Then tell me!” the younger throws the napkin back. It lands on the garbage bag they’ve been using to gather all their mess. “Are you seeing someone?”

“I have to take out the trash.”

Mark ties a knot on the plastic bag and heads out of the practice room.

Hyuck walks right behind him, following him outside. “Oh my God. You’re seriously having premarital eye contact? Mark Lee, that’s a sin!” he gasps theatrically, actually earning a laugh from the other. “Who is it then? That guy from Yuta’s party? That barman?”

The one who kept brushing Mark’s fingers while he handed him his drinks. He was cute, Mark admits, but he scrunches his nose and shakes his head as he puts the trash bag on the container and heads back inside.

“Then? We haven’t been to much parties or gatherings recently so you couldn’t have...” Donghyuck’s voice trails off then stops. Realization hits. “Shut the fuck up... _Mark_!” he jogs just enough to stand in front of his friend. 

He looks at him with wide eyes and puts both his hands on Mark’s shoulders to stop him. It doesn’t really work, but Mark stops for his friend’s honor. 

“Did you hook up with a model at Jung Jaehyun’s party?” the younger asks, dead serious. “Yuta hyung told me there was someone interested in you but I didn’t think… It’s her, right? The pretty model from RV Entertainment?”

Mark seriously has no idea what he’s talking about, but he nods. “Yeah, it’s her.”

“Wait, really?”

“No, you idiot,” the older laughs, removing Hyuck’s hands away from his shoulders so he can finally head to his room. “I’m not seeing nor hooking up with anyone. I’m just texting a friend.”

 _Hold on_.

_Holdonholdonholdonholdon– wait._

Mark stops dead on his tracks again, though this time no one’s holding him back.

“Mark,” Donghyuck sighs, both hands on his hips and shaking his head. “You literally have around 6 friends– and one of them is your brother. Who could you possibly be texting other than us?”

If the older weren’t so taken aback by the fact that he just called Wong Lucas a _friend_ , he would have totally cursed at Hyuck.

Because seriously, where did that even come from? Sure, he’s been talking to Yukhei almost daily, and they’ve shared more than a few things about themselves that only their closest friends know, and they call each other _bro,_ and _dude_ , and _buddy,_ and all of the other nicknames friends use to address each other. 

But… are they friends?

Regret falls over Mark like a heavy weight all of a sudden, the same kind of apologetic remorse he’d first felt when meeting eyes with Lucas for the first time all those weeks ago. He shouldn’t be doing this, Mark shouldn’t be getting close to him like that, he can’t.

Not after _that_.

Donghyuck is still going on and on about how “Mark shouldn’t be keeping secrets from him”, but the older isn’t really listening. He’s thinking on how did he even manage to fuck up that bad– he’d been careful! He’d been keeping his distance from Lucas, successfully avoiding his attempts to form a friendship, and that’s how it was supposed to continue. Mark was supposed to keep up the act of the mean, cold guy for as long as he had to, until the other got tired of him or, even better, ended up hating him.

That’s what Mark deserves, to be hated. Not to form a friendship.

He excuses himself from his talk with Hyuck by saying he’s feeling dizzy, and even though it probably sounds like bullshit, his friend lets him go. Donghyuck knows better than to push too hard, tease too much. He’ll continue in the morning when they’re both well rested and Mark doesn’t look like he’s about to throw up.

Once he’s locked in the privacy of his own room, Mark finally takes a deep breath.

He has to fix this, he has to somehow pull himself out from the mess he got himself into in the first place. 

Mark pulls out his phone. When he unlocks it, the screen is still displaying the conversation he’d been having with Lucas a few moments earlier– the last message sent being from the other boy, telling Mark to go to bed and rest after a long day of working hard. His fingers tremble as he types down, trying to convince himself that this is the best thing he can do, that it’s better to do this now than to end up regretting it later.

He hits send.

  
  


**You – 01:27 AM**

_cas?_

_i know this is all of a sudden but_

_want to hang out tomorrow?_

– _🎈_ _🎈_ _🎈_ –

He takes him to a concert. 

Everything around them can only be described as _stuffy_. The arena hasn’t yet turned dark, but the crowd is already bursting with raucous whoops and cheers, pressed into each other’s spaces, desperate to get closer. There’s shouting and talking everywhere while waiting for the ever-so-popular Nakamoto Yuta to come up on stage. 

Mark’s heart is beating fast– he has a plan.

It’s kind of the worst plan ever, but desperate times need desperate measures. 

He’d thought this through last night as the other had gladly agreed to go out together. Lucas had proposed a lot of places where they could go ( _The coffee shop near your company? The arcade in front of mine? Oh, should we go watch that movie that came out the other day?_ ), but Mark already had one specific place in mind.

Yuta’s concerts, with all due respect, are the worst place you can take someone you like to.

They’re ear-piercing loud and there’s always too many people no matter how big the place is, sweaty bodies pressing onto each other without much room to breathe. There’s always people drinking all kinds of liquor and moving around, a mosh pit creating in all sections of the entire arena that always ends up with a few fans leaving with bloody faces and missing clothing. Yuta’s fans are wild. They scream and they jump and they throw all kinds of things– up on the stage and other sections of the crowd, including the people dancing next to them. 

It’s a total chaos, which is why, when Mark agrees to come, he much rather chooses to watch from backstage.

Not tonight, though. 

Tonight, they’re standing in the middle of the pit right in front of the main stage, where the real riot sets loose. Mark trusts on the fact that, if Yuta get the audience hyped up enough, they will get completely swallowed into the jumping and pushing, so much that not even a guy as tall as Lucas would be able to enjoy a second of it.

The goal of his plan is simple: to have such a terrible, disappointing night, Lucas doesn’t ever want to hang out with Mark ever again. 

“I’ve never really been to one of Yuta’s concerts before,” the older actually admits minutes before the show starts, smiling nervously. “I’ve heard all about them, though. It’s going to get crazy, right?”

Oh, he has no idea.

The lights in the arena dim right then, and a guitar riff makes the entire crowd scream their lungs out. It’s the intro to one of Mark’s favorite Yuta songs, and, though a small part of him wishes it doesn’t, he prays that his plan works.

Yuta’s voice suddenly fills the arena, and he runs on stage with his guitar in hand, making the entire audience scream and jump and bang their heads to the sound of it. Mark hears some girls around him freaking out and saying things like, “ _Oh my god, he’s so hot!_ ” and, “ _Please take my entire life!_ ” and it nearly makes him want to laugh.

A low rumble goes through the crowd, the floor vibrating with music as Yuta takes the stage and truly makes it his own.

Mark’s usually all in for dancing– moshing, specially. He genuinely enjoys the thrashing bodies and shoving around whenever he comes see Yuta live– his music is a little too hardcore but the beat is good, rich and consistent, and Mark loves bobbing his head along, watching the drunken lot of people like an ocean wave in front of him.

He knows it’s not for everyone, though.

That’s why he’s surprised when he looks next to him at Lucas and sees him– smiling so very brightly. He’s being pushed around and stumbles once or twice, but he’s smiling and then laughing and then swaying with the music, getting actively involved with the show. Even though Mark knows every song and Lucas knows much less, it doesn’t seem to matter to him, because he starts having just as much fun. 

By the middle of the show he’s screaming as loud as everyone around them, throwing his hands up in rock on signs and recklessly jumping along with the crowd. Mark tries to keep up with it all– the enthusiasm that envelops him, Yuta’s performance– but instead he finds himself watching Lucas much more than the show, wanting to hold onto the look of pure bliss on his face.

Mark almost forgets what his first intentions were.

A body is thrown out of the mess of people in front of them, and it bumps straight into Lucas and spills an entire beer down the front of his shirt. Mark watches as the situation unfolds in less than a second, embarrassment creeping up his entire body as if it had been his own personal fault.

That’s when he thinks– wait, maybe this can work.

Lucas must be pissed off. He must hate it here and he must hate Mark for bringing him to this kind of place, and he’ll probably want to leave immediately and never see Mark again.

“Fuck, dude, I’m sorry,” the guy says, and Lucas finally looks up from his soiled shirt.

He’s… smiling? “Don’t worry about it, man! Accidents happen. It’s crazy in here!”

The other man laughs and agrees (“ _It’s a madhouse!”_ ) before honestly apologizing once again. Lucas shakes his head and reassures him it’s okay, makes a joke about him needing to freshen up anyway, and then everything’s past them and they both get back to enjoying the show.

It’s almost unbelievable.

The show goes by almost too quickly. Lucas proves to have a mosh pit etiquette Mark wonders where he learned from, because he keeps helping those around him when they fall over and pushing the crowd back when someone needs air. He moves around with such nature and genuine joy that it rubs onto Mark, and whatever plan he had at the beginning of the night is suddenly discarded and forgotten at the back of his mind.

He jumps next to Lucas and both scream Yuta’s lyrics at the top of their lungs, joining the crowd in their reckless enjoyment. When Mark stumbles a little too much and nearly falls, Lucas is quick to grab his hand and help him back up, but he doesn’t let go. They hold onto each other for the rest of the concert, being the other’s support though Mark feels like he can’t bring much protection.

It ends up being a great night.

The encore ends, not before they have a few small interactions with some fans that recognize them in between the crowd, a picture here and there, and even get to have a beer the guy from earlier buys them as an apology for bathing Lucas in alcohol. Mark feels a bit like he’s waking from a dream, or surfacing from underwater, squinting up into the stark overhead lights as the crowd begins to file out.

He hadn’t had this much fun in ages.

– _🎈_ _🎈_ _🎈_ –

“So... What did you think?” 

They’re sitting at the backseat of a car, ready to be taken home after the night’s over. It’s a little past 12 AM, which is usually not that late for either of them, but they’d felt so tired and beaten up from the mosh pit that sitting down on the cushy seats had felt like heaven.

Lucas smiles so brightly Mark unconsciously mirrors him. “He’s really, _really_ good!” the taller exclaims, nearly bouncing on his seat, the energy of the night still thrumming through his veins. “I’d never had the chance to see him live, it was amazing! And the crowd– man, that engagement…”

Mark nods “Truly a madhouse.”

“For real.” 

There’s silence after that, but neither of them mind. It feels nice, comfortable even, to just be sitting next to each other as the car drives past buildings and houses as silent as them. They enjoyed the warmth of companionship rather than the noise of unnecessary chatter, and it’s so peaceful it’s almost funny how it completely contrasts the place from where they just got out from. 

The car pulls over in what seems like mere seconds. Mark looks out the window, sees the lights of the penthouse Lucas and his bandmates share still on, which means that someone (most likely Kun) is waiting for him to come back– after last time, he’s kind of got a curfew.

“Thank you for today, Mark,” Lucas’s voice suddenly says, hoarse from all the yelling.

The other turns around to look at him and simply smiles.

But when Lucas places his hand over Mark’s thigh and squeezes, offering him another one of his big smiles, it makes the younger catch his breath. “I had a lot of fun, and even though we didn’t talk much, I learned a lot about you, too. I hope we can repeat this some time soon.”

He doesn’t even give the other the time to reply.

Lucas squeezes his thigh one last time before slightly bowing his head to the staff member in the front seat (a new driver, just then Mark realizes), thanking him for bringing him back home safely, and then he’s hopping out of the car into his apartment building.

Mark remains frozen in his seat long after the car starts moving again, his heart caught on his throat, chills running down his back.

… This is bad.

He waits until he gets home, double-checks that Donghyuck is asleep, and locks himself inside his room before pulling out his phone. Mark’s clumsy fingers move through the screen until he finds the app he’s looking for, and then he scrolls down his contacts, listed names becoming blurry before his eyes as he searches for one specific person.

It takes him about 8 rings to pick up.

“Hi. I’m kind of freaking out and I need to say something out loud or else I’m afraid it’s going to make me combust,” the younger says into the phone, voice so high in panic one could easily think he’s in danger. 

He might as well be.

“What? Why? What’s going on?” it’s Yuta who asks on the other side of the line, already sounding slightly concerned. 

Mark takes a deep breath. “So you know Yukhei. I actually invited him out tonight because I had this stupid plan of spending the worst night ever with him. I wanted him to hate every aspect of it and I wanted him to hate me for it, and I wanted him to say he couldn’t keep on being friends with me and stop talking to me, because that’s what I deserve after _that…_ But it turned out to be the complete opposite,” he pants a little, tries to catch his breath. “It was a fucking amazing night and we had a great fucking time and he kept fucking smiling so much even after some random guy spilled his entire drink on him. He danced next to me, sang to your songs with me, held me when I nearly fall on my face inside the mosh pit, and then thanked me for such an awesome night. And he said he hoped we could repeat it sometime soon and I’m fucking doomed because I kinda hope that, too.”

“Mark, you need to breathe,” the other tells him, trying as best as he can to calm the younger down. “It’s okay, man! I get that you still feel bad about what happened in the past, but you need to remind yourself that that was _not_ on you. And well, like it or not, he’s your friend now. It’s normal for you to have a great time with a friend and feel the need to do it again sometime soon.”

That’s not it.

Mark knows that’s not it because otherwise he wouldn’t be freaking out. If he were just concerned about being friends with Lucas, he wouldn’t be thinking about the way he held his hand throughout the entire last half of the concert, or how their fingers intertwined and held onto each other with strength yet gentle care. He wouldn’t be thinking of how his hand was sweating, his heart was racing, and he wouldn’t be so sure of the fact that it wasn’t because of the suffocating crowd.

If it were it, Mark’s stomach wouldn’t have fluttered when Lucas’s hand almost wrapped around his entire thigh, when he squeezed twice so naturally and affectionately it had literally drained the words from the younger’s lips. If it were it, he wouldn’t be feeling as much panic as he is right now. 

“No, you don’t get it,” Mark groans into the phone, defeated. 

That’s not it, and he knows it.

“I think I might be crushing on Yukhei.”


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I have to tell you (I can't tell you)

Yuta laughs loudly on the other side of the line.

“Am I supposed to pretend to be shocked?” he says, cheerfully laughing like he’s just heard the funniest joke in the world.

Mark huffs. “Hyung, I’m freaking out.”

The smile on his friend’s face is almost audible, but he’s stopped laughing in order to provide his own kind of support. “Markie, I thought we’d already had this chat. Are you still insecure about your sexuality? Because remember I told you–”

“ _ It’s not that! _ ” the younger almost feels like ripping off his hair. Why is he talking to Yuta about this, of all people? He should really reconsider what Hyuck said about him having 6 friends. “I’m way past that, I’m not worrying about that. I’m worrying about… About...”

“About the fact that you’re in love with Lucas.”

“I’m not in  _ anything _ with him,” Mark panics for real this time. He has to calm down and not raise his voice if he doesn’t want to wake up Hyuck and make things worse. “It may not even be a  _ crush _ crush. Probably just a medium crush. Or a small one, really. It’s more like a tiny–”

“ _ Mark _ .”

“Okay, okay. Let me rephrase that,” the younger closes his eyes, takes a deep breath. If he has to say it, he might as well try not to over-dramatize it. “... I’m worried I might start having feelings for Yukhei. It’s not just about being his friend anymore.”

Yuta hums, like he understands. He’s stopped laughing, and his voice is actually quite reassuring once he speaks again. You wouldn’t think that a few hours ago he was giving an ear-piercing performance. “Yeah, well, look how that turned out. From the beginning you knew it was never going to work, playing the asshole card. I told you and Hyuck told you, even my man told you–”

“Johnny hyung is not your man.”

“Details, details. Can I continue?” Yuta scoffs. He takes Mark’s silence as a yes. “Thank you. We told you it wasn’t going to work because that’s not you, and that’s not Lucas either. Becoming friends was inevitable, and liking him might be, too. There is no controlling that heart of yours, Mark– if it ends up deciding to give itself up to Lucas, you’ll be up on that ride too, whether you like it or not.”

This is not what Mark wanted to hear, but he knows it’s the truth. He’s never really been the hopeless romantic kind of guy, but the few times he’d had small crushes they always happened without him even realizing how it happened.

“Besides,” Yuta speaks again. “There’s too much shit involved for you to even know if you really like him. As far as we know, it could just be guilt.”

Mark frowns. “Guilt?”

“ _ Please _ . Like you don’t know yourself,” he can’t see him, but Mark pictures the other rolling his eyes. “You’ve been thinking about  _ that _ so much that you’d started feeling guilty just from texting him occasionally. And now you’re out there, hanging out with him and having a great time?  _ How dare you _ !”

It’s crazy how right he is. Everything down to the way Mark’s mind has been reprimanding him almost daily over growing closer to Lucas.

“I think you should spend more time with him.”

“Are you out of your mind?” the younger yelps, knees giving in. He falls over his bed, and he feels so tired he might as well pass out any second now. “If I do that, I’m screwed. I’ll become his friend and then I’ll like it and then I’ll definitely like  _ him _ and–”

“Unfortunately for you, you already friends a _ re _ with him, Mark. That’s done,” Yuta interrupts. He sounds just a little exasperated, like he can’t wait for this nonsense to be over, but he’s trying his best to be there for Mark. “You shouldn’t be scared of falling for him or not, you should be scared of what makes you feel like you shouldn’t. Work on that guilt that’s still eating you over something that wasn’t even your fault.”

His words linger over the air, definite.

“Let yourself go, Mark,” Yuta says, sighing a little. “And let the past go. Or else it’s going to kill you.”

Mark knows he’s right, so he agrees despite his best efforts not to. He thanks the older for his time and strangely helpful advice, and promises that he will do his best not to think too much about what’s going on with Lucas but rather on what’s going on with him. Whether they’re just friends or something else is really not something to be decided right now, at 12:41 AM when his body is tired and his mind completely exhausted and his only proof are their sweaty hands holding onto each other and a couple of smiles. 

He’s going to have to live a whole process to come up with an answer, and he’ll have to do it upfront and unafraid and after getting rid of that guilt that keeps gnawing at him.

If he likes Lucas or not is something he should worry about after getting his shit together.

After a few more words of gratitude and a loud  _ I love you, kid! _ Yuta kisses onto his ear, the younger hangs up and finally lets go of the breath he’d been holding. Yuta’s right– he needs to let go, of everything. He should’ve a long time ago.

Mark is so tired he feels like he’ll fall asleep the second his head lies over the pillow, exhaustion having mercy on him and allowing his mind and heart to have a peaceful night, though God knows tomorrow morning he’ll be panicking again. Mark takes a deep breath as he lets sleep take over him and then he’s drifting away.

He doesn’t even have time to wonder why was Yuta the one to pick up the phone when he’d originally called Johnny.

– _🎈_ _🎈_ _🎈_ –

“Mark  _ fucking _ Lee, you have a lot of explaining to do.”

The older frowns, trying to blink the sleep still clinging onto him away. Donghyuck has his phone right in front of his face and Mark isn’t wearing his glasses, so he has to squint at the screen before figuring out what he’s talking about.

Ah.

“What’s there to explain?” he asks, shoving a spoonful of cereal into his mouth. “I told you I was going to Yuta’s concert last night.”

The picture his friend is showing him is a screenshot taken from Twitter. There’s a caption that reads  _ STV’s guitarist Wong Lucas and TTF’s guitarist Mark Lee were seen together at Nakamoto Yuta’s concert last night! _ over a set of three pictures of the mentioned. Mark recognizes it’s Jisung’s account and smiles a little.

“ _ What’s there to explain? _ ” Hyuck mimics Mark’s voice the way he always does. “Since when are you and Lucas fucking Serena and Blair?”

Mark huffs. “Who?”

“... You’re going to kill me,” Hyuck sighs, plopping down on the chair next to Mark on the dining table. “That's it. You want me dead!” he exclaims, dramatic as ever. The other laughs. “Whatever happened to your  _ fantastic  _ plan of being a Lucas anti, huh? Thought you hated him!”

He knows he must really be shocked, so Mark doesn’t bother on telling the other to calm down. “You know I don’t. And well,” he shrugs, eyes falling on his cereal bowl to avoid looking at his friend. “Shit just happened. We’ve been talking.”

Donghyuck’s eyes widen. “... The texts?”

“Yup.”

The younger’s mouth hangs open, like he can’t believe it. Is he for real? Mark’s been out there texting Lucas nonstop for  _ weeks,  _ even dared to invite him out to a concert, and he didn’t even think of telling all about it to Hyuck? Not even mention it?

“You’re, like,  _ the worst _ friend ever, did you know that?”

He knows the other doesn’t mean it, so Mark simply nods. “Yes, Donghyuck. The absolute worst.”

– _🎈_ _🎈_ _🎈_ –

“Mark is the best.”

They’re sitting inside a car, being taken to a filming set for a new video they plan on releasing a few weeks from now. Lucas has been happily texting Mark all morning, sharing screenshots of memes they find on Twitter and interesting videos they’ve watched on Youtube, their taste in all of them being quite similar. 

It’s been a month since their first encounter at Yuta’s concert, and ever since they’ve kept up their constant texting, have even met up twice more– once they went to a coffee shop, the next time to the mall for some shopping.

The way he thinks of Mark slips out from his lips as he receives a text from him inviting him over later today, before they say goodbye and good luck for their schedules. Mark even sends him a red balloon emoji that makes Lucas smile.

Yangyang hums. “You say that about him but not about us?”

Next to him Xiaojun huffs. “Must be a special friend.”

“Your new  _ best _ friend, I’d say,” Hendery adds.

Lucas nudges him and shakes his head. “Oi, oi, don’t be jealous, you three,” he coos, smiling. “ _ You _ are the best of the best because you’re my family, okay? Family!”

They know he means it, and really, none of them have any kind of problem with him and Mark– or any other person for that matter– becoming friends. Still, families love to tease each other, and Hendery breaks into a speech worth of a soap opera about how he feels betrayed (“You went to see  _ Yuta _ with him! It hurts, Xuxi, there’s a wound right here,” he says while pointing to his heart) while Yangyang makes fake sobbing noises and Xiaojun apparently comforts him.

It’s quite the scene.

“Leave him alone, you little devils,” Ten says from the front seat, taking a look at them through the rearview mirror as he drives. He’s got one hand on the wheel and the other one holding Kun’s, and it’s gross and kind of not road-safe but he doesn’t care. “But, Xuxi... You and Mark... How did that even happen?”

Lucas’s smile grows bigger at the mention of his name. “It started at Jung Jaehyun’s party!”

“That party  _ you _ let them go to unsupervised, where he ended up drunk as Hell and nearly dead,” Kun says between his teeth, obviously still annoyed about it. 

“It’s been _over a_ _month_ ,” Ten complains, but he knows he kinds deserves that, so he brings his husband’s hand up to his lips a presses a small kiss there. “And I said sorry, grumpy.”

“And I wasn’t nearly dead!” Lucas huffs a little, denying what his manager said so he can take it easy on the other. “Mark was there to take care of me and drive me home anyway. I texted him the morning after and we just hit it off ever since. He’s the best.”

Something flashes through Ten’s eyes, a weird shadow that darkens his pupils for a second. “What do you two talk about?”

“The usual. Schedules, dumb jokes, conspiracy theories,” Lucas shrugs, and it seems to take a weight off of Ten’s shoulders, because he relaxes a little bit. “That’s pretty much it.”

Hendery gasps. “Conspiracy theories are like the nudes of the soul! What’s next? You’ll plan to infiltrate Area 51 together?”

“Actually...”

All three other young men in the car groan at the same time, and Lucas breaks into such big laughter it makes everyone laugh, too. Still, Xiaojun shakes his head in sorrow. “We’ve lost him. Next thing we know, he’ll have a crush on him.”

And although the smile on Lucas face is still there (because Xiaojun is joking,  _ obviously _ ), it quivers slightly, and he looks down to his hands on his lap without saying anything.

He probably should’ve said something.

“Unless…” Yangyang’s voice teases. “You already do?”

Lucas snorts, his smile a lot more shy now. “... Shut up.”

And maybe that was the wrong answer, because chaos sets loose around him. It’s a miracle Ten doesn’t lose control of the car then.

“Holy shit, man!” Hendery laughs. “We were just messing with you.”

“ _ Mark Lee!” _ Yangyang screams, like he can’t believe it. “You’re crushing on Mark Lee!”

Lucas yells at them to  _ Shut up! _ more than once, face heating up with every second they keep talking.

“Who would’ve thought?” Xiaojun raises his eyebrows, making a  _ Waaah  _ sound right then. “Xuxi’s the kind to fall for bad boys.”

“ _ Bad boys _ ?” Kun frowns from his seat.

Hendery nods effusively. “Yeah! You know how Mark was all quiet and mysterious at first and he had this look on his eyes like  _ Stay away from me _ , and it was kinda scary?”

“Please stop,” Lucas melts down his seat. 

Despite his plead, Yangyang continues. “But it was just a front to protect Xuxi! He probably feels like he’ll end up hurting him if he lets himself get too close…”

“Oh, but they’re already too close,” Xiaojun intervenes, shaking his head. “Remember those pics of them at Yuta’s concert? Shoulder to shoulder, smiling at each other...”

Just as Lucas thinks it can’t get worse, Hendery turns to his side, putting a hand against the window in front of him and across Yangyang’s face. “Did he already do that thing where you’re against the wall and he leans over you with one hand?”

“And you say  _ M-Mark…”  _ the youngest puts a hand to his lips. “And give him a look that’s all helpless, but still kind of turned on, and he looks at your lips and–”

“Alright, alright,  _ stop _ ,” Kun scolds from the front seat, looking back at them like they’re all insane. Leave it on him to save one of them from the rest. “You kids watch too much anime and K-dramas.”

The band laugh at the comment, finally snapping out of their little theatre. It gives Lucas enough time to compose himself, though the tips of his ears remain bright red.

“Actually,” Yangyang raises a finger. “We read that on fanfiction about us.”

“ _ What _ ?!”

“Yeah! Xiaojun and me,” Hendery says, maybe just a little too proud. “I was the bad boy. Man, was it  _ lit _ .”

Xiaojun nods, agreeing with his friends. “Yangyang was my best friend, and he was secretly in love with me.”

“And Xuxi had a weird thing going on with Ten ge,” Yangyang decides it’s important to add. “On chapter four they even–”

“I swear to God,” Ten cuts him off, shooting the youngest a deadly glare through the mirror. “If you don’t stop talking I  _ will _ crash this car into the nearest building.”

He can’t possibly mean it, but everyone stops talking, just in case.

There’s still a few small laughs and devilish smiles around the boys, and they nudge each other and give Lucas mocking looks that say more than a thousand words. It might not be the best idea, but he might as well do it right now than to have them tease him again later.

“Can I go to Mark’s after the shoot?” the taller asks, almost mumbling the words. His friends try their best not to laugh. “He promised he’d help me with something.”

Kun checks something on his phone, then nods. “Sure. We’ll have another staff take you there.”

Lucas smiles a little then, looking forward to later in the day, and he turns around to look outside the window to avoid their friends eyes.

He doesn’t get to catch the split-second worried glare Ten gives him behind the wheel.

– _🎈_ _🎈_ _🎈_ –

It’s hard not to fall for Lucas– especially because Mark doesn’t even try not to. 

He starts answering to his texts as quickly as he gets them, smiling widely when he receives a selfie from him, thinking about him before he goes to bed and in the morning when he wakes up.

At some point,  _ that _ is forgotten at the back of his head, unimportant. 

That, which used to be loud and nerve wrecking, always making him feel caught between rock and a hard place, it’s slowly starting become quiet, almost meaningless. It stops bothering him as he listens to a 3 minute audio of Lucas talking about why Fight Club is  _ the best movie ever _ . It doesn’t seem important as Lucas sends him a video of him playing a song he just composed. And it definitely doesn’t stop him from saying yes when Lucas asks him if he’d help him come up with the lyrics for it.

Mark doesn’t even realize he’s really falling for Lucas, because all thoughts of guilt and fear appear to be gone and forgotten when he sees him walk down the front yard of his house, smiling brightly and waving.

“Hey, how was the shoot?” he greets as soon as the taller reaches the entrance. Mark expects a fist bump or a high five. Instead, he gets a hug.

“It went great!” Lucas says against his ear, arms completely wrapped around the other tightly. “They did my makeup all smokey, I think it looks cool. What do you think?” he says, pulling back from the hug but not necessarily stepping back.

He bends his knees slightly, enough so his face is merely inches away from the other’s, eyes big and staring at the young man in front of him. Mark almost forgets he’s supposed to be checking out the brown and orange eyeshadow coloring his crease.

The younger mumbles. “ _ Ithink- _ ”

“Xuxi!”

Lucas straightens up, his full height allowing him to peek inside the house behind Mark, and his face lights up as he notices– all of his old friends are here.

Renjun and Jeno encourage him to come inside, telling him they have snacks and cold soda and a new drum set Jaemin’s about to check out. The taller says something along the lines of  _ Sign me up! _ and he walks into the house with a polite bow and a squeeze on Mark’s shoulder. He disappears into their practice room in no time.

The younger remains still at the door.

– _🎈_ _🎈_ _🎈_ –

They’re sitting on the couch at Mark’s and Hyuck’s practice room.

Lucas himself has a small soundproof room in the penthouse he shares with his band members, but it looks like a closet in comparison to their spacious setup, with its cluster of drum sets and even a grand piano.

N ot that they’re actually getting much practicing done today.

“You should add another syllable to that line.”

“Hm?” Lucas asks, looking away from the lyrics he’s working on and down at Mark, whose head is resting comfortably against his chest.

How did that even end up happening, neither of them is sure. But they’re sitting on the couch, snuggling against the other, either ignoring or not even aware of the peculiar looks the rest are giving them. 

“The current pattern is four, five, seven,” Mark replies, lifting a hand up to tap at the line Lucas had just scrawled over his notebook page. “It’ll flow better if the syllabic rhythm if five, five, seven.”

“Huh,” Lucas says, tapping the end of his pencil against his chin. “I suppose that’s true… But I like this phrasing,” he pouts. “It creates nice imagery, don’t you think?”

Mark barely even tries hiding the smile on his face. “Yeah, it does. Maybe there’s a synonym you can use,” he muses, straightening up slightly. The top of his head brushes against Lucas’s chin as he pulls out his phone, and both shuffle a bit into their seats to comfortably keep their position. 

But before they can get too caught up in the feeling of having the other pressed up this close, another voice breaks them abruptly out of their thoughts.

“You know, I’ve been trying  _ really hard _ not to ask, but this is getting ridiculous,” Jaemin’s voice says from the other corner of the room. “Are you guys, like, dating now or something?”

Mark sputters, and he can feel his face flush as he looks up over at Jaemin, who’s sitting behind his drum set, a little ways away. He flounders for an answer as his pink haired friend studies him intently, polishing his cymbals and staring at him as if he’s trying to puzzle out a particularly difficult equation.

It takes Mark a few seconds to formulate a coherent sentence, not even daring to look behind him to see Lucas’s reaction. “We’re  _ not _ dating,” he finally manages.

“Really? But you do like each other, right?” Hyuck asks teasingly from the bean bag next to them, cocking his head slightly. “Because recently there’s been a lot of fan speculation about you two.”

“There’s also a lot about you and Jeno,” Lucas tries to defend himself and Mark, not even bothering to look up from his phone. Mark sneaks a peek at the screen and blinks as he watches Lucas scroll through an online thesaurus, but he misses seeing just how red the taller’s ears have become.

There’s a small twinge of hope in Mark’s chest as Lucas doesn’t deny liking him.

He also doesn’t say he does, but that’s not important.

Jeno snickers. “On the contrary, Hyuck and I don’t spend our free time cuddling as if our lives depended on it.”

“We’re not cuddling,” Mark retorts, trying to ignore the warmth of Lucas’s chest under his head.

“Right,” Renjun says flatly. He’s sitting on the piano bench and, like the rest, looks less than convinced. “Your protests would be a lot more convincing if you weren’t actually cuddling."

They all laugh, and it makes Mark’s face turn red. 

He mumbles something about being thirsty or hungry or  _ whatever _ , and then he’s up on both his feet and walking out of the room without looking back once. His friends throw fake apologies at him to try and get him to come back (“ _ Come on, Markie, we’re joking! I’m just jealous you’re not cuddling  _ me _!”  _ Nana says), but they’re useless. Mark’s gone.

Lucas gets up from the couch, smiles apologetically, and goes after him, and the others silently agree they’ll let him. 

Whatever they have to go through right now seems like something they have to go through alone together, so they just swallow down their jokes and get back to practice.

– _🎈_ _🎈_ _🎈_ –

He finds him outside.

Lucas smiles at the sight before him, because it’s really kind of adorable— the sun has set and it’s almost dark outside, a few dark clouds visible in the sky above. There’s a swing set in the middle of the backyard made out of dark wood, two swings hanging with yellow colored chains on both ends.

Sitting on one of them is Mark, with both legs stretched up in front of him and a closed bottle of water between his hands.

“Ah, I was looking for that,” Lucas says, pointing to the drink on Mark’s hands as he walks up to him and plops down on the swing next to his. The wooden cracks a little under his weight, but it seems like it’ll resist. “You took the last bottle.”

That’s most certainly not true, but Mark isn’t really paying attention. “Sorry,” he says, handing Lucas the bottle. “You can have it. I’m not even thirsty.”

The other isn’t either, but he takes it nonetheless.

There’s silence between them after that, but it’s the same kind of silence Mark likes— the one he always shares with Lucas, comfortable, calm, comforting. It gives him the space he needs to process, to regroup, to collect himself. Lucas knows when to give him that space. He knows his presence alone can soothe Mark, so he simply sits wordlessly by his side as the other retreats inside his mind looking for words.

“Sorry if they made you uncomfortable,” the younger ends up saying, as if it’d been Lucas the one to walk out unexpectedly and not him.

Still, the other shakes his head. “Why would they?”

Mark shrugs. “You know… With their jokes and all. If I hadn’t walked out, you’d have to keep listening to them talk about dating me. Annoying, right?”

Annoying because Lucas doesn’t feel that way, annoying because they’re just friends. Annoying because it shouldn’t even happen in the first place. 

“Not really,” Lucas says instead, swinging himself a little. “Wouldn’t mind, anyway,” he laughs.

Mark raises his head to look up at him. 

He wouldn’t mind what, dating him? Hearing their friend’s jokes? What wouldn’t he mind? He tries looking at Lucas’s face for some answers, but it doesn’t work. The other has his head hung low, staring at bottle he’s holding between his hands, and there’s a small smile on his lips that confuses Mark even more.

He doesn’t even get to ask about it, because Lucas speaks up then. “They’ve always been like that, I’m sure you know. We actually used to tease Hyuck and Jeno all the time like that, too, until their ears turned red,” he laughs a little. “That’s probably what prepared them for the fans now.”

It probably was, Mark agrees. Every time they post a picture together, there’s a thousand fans speculating about their relationship, making theories and even bets around it. Hyuck and Jeno have always found it funny, and Mark always wonders how it never seemed to affect their friendship. They’re probably immune to it by this point, if they used to get teased about since… how many years ago?

“You knew them long, right?” Mark suddenly asks, trying to remember how long has it been since the other knows his band mates.

Lucas hums. “We met when we were fifteen,” he nods. It’s been six years. “We trained together until you guys debuted. Then we lost contact.”

Mark doesn’t know if he wants to hear the answer, but he makes the question anyway. “What did you do after that?”

“Oh, I went back to China. Like I’d promised my parents.”

“What exactly did you promise?”

It almost seems like Lucas doesn’t hear him, because he doesn’t answer for a few seconds. He simply stares at the grass, like contemplating the name of its shade of green, spaced out. Mark considers saying something else, apologize for asking.

But Lucas answers before he can take it back. “I always wanted to be an artist, ever since I was young. I even taught myself how to play guitar by the age of ten. And after, like,  _ years _ of begging my parents, they finally let me try and look for a record company. Dream Records was having a global audition at the time so I signed up… And, once I’d gotten accepted, my parents let me come to Korea on one condition,” he says, his voice a lot more quiet than usual. He takes a deep breath before answering. “If I didn’t make it by 18, I’d go back home.”

His words hang over the air, cold as the wind that blows against their faces.

Mark feels his throat go dry. His heart starts beating fast, way too fast to be considered healthy, and he’s scared that if he doesn’t stop he’ll have a heart attack. This is insane, this can’t be real.

“It’s not that they didn’t support my dream,” Lucas’s voice sounds like he’s ten miles away, too distant to Mark’s ears. He tries to smile, but it seems slightly off. “They just… Didn’t want me to waste my time, I guess. So I went back and I signed up for college. Worked at a few restaurants to pay back what I owed for my training days. Never stopped playing the guitar, obviously.”

Despite the nature of the story, Lucas’s voice sounds awfully peaceful. Mark almost wishes he sounded angry instead. “Then I met Yangyang. He walked into the cafeteria one day and out of nowhere just yelled  _ Anyone here know how to play guitar?! _ out in the open like that,” a laugh escapes the taller’s lips as he remembers, nostalgic. “Don’t know if there really wasn’t anyone else or if they just found it weird, but it was only me the one to raise a hand. Followed him into the music room, and met the rest. Apparently they’d just had this crazy, impulsive idea to start a band, but they didn’t have a guitarist. And suddenly there I was. It was almost destiny.”

Mark’s lips tremble and his hands grip at the chains holding up his swing, so tightly it turns his knuckles white. Destiny.

Lucas sighs. “We started rehearsing on Hendery’s mom’s basement, recording covers and uploading them to Youtube. Playing at random bars until Kun ge found us one day. Said we had talent. And now we’re here.”

And now Mark’s here, and  _ that _ comes back to gnaw at him from the inside out, regaining status.

That, which had grown quiet, almost meaningless, is now banging loudly inside his head, demanding for the attention it deserves. It disturbs his thoughts, clouds his vision, clogs his airways. Mark has to do something, he has to  _ say _ something.

Lucas turns around to look at him then, and the look on the younger’s face makes him frown. “Sorry, did I ramble on too much?” he asks, genuine worry in his voice. “I was trying to distract you from what happened in there, but now I’m scared I ended up upsetting you more.”

Mark wants to reply, he really does, but words won’t come out. Instead, he simply shakes his head, trying to indicate it’s okay

He should be the one apologizing.

“Lucas?” he manages to say, rather whisper. “There’s something I have to tell you. I...”

Loud thunder drowns his words.

Then, rain.

“Oh, man! Wait, let’s get inside!” Lucas yelps, feeling the cold droplets fall on his skin. He reaches out to hold Mark’s hand and pulls, trying to make the other follow.

It’s not a long walk, from the middle of the backyard to the safety of the house, but Mark can’t stop thinking about everything and nothing at the same time. His mind cries  _ He’s holding my hand _ and _ I have to tell him  _ followed by the mourning of  _ I can’t ever tell him. _

They reach the glass doors that lead to the house, and Lucas brings them both inside and closes the doors behind them. Their hair and clothes are slightly damp but not drenched, which is a good sign, but why does Mark still feel like drowning? He takes a look down, to where he feels the most pain.

Lucas’s still holding his hand.

They’re safely inside the house, away from the rain, but their hands are still holding onto one another like they’re waiting for the next time they have to run away. They stare at the rain falling heavily outside, wonder if they predicted this on the news this morning. The drops of water fall with the same intensity Mark’s heart is beating right now, a regular  _ pat, pat, pat _ that can be heard inside his ears.

“What did you want to say?” Lucas then asks, voice like a whisper. It’s a miracle he hears him behind all of his thoughts.

Mark looks up only to find him staring back. His eyes are big and caring and  _ loving _ , and when they look down at Mark’s lips, he almost feels like crumbling down. He knows what’s coming.

He wants this.

_ This can’t be. _

“I…”

Conflicting emotions keep arising within him, and it’s scary, it’s beautiful, how Lucas grows closer, how his warmth replaces the cold left from the rain.

He wants this.

_ I have to tell you. _

“I’m…”

Just a little push, just a little closer.

_ I can't tell you. _

Time.

“Oi, are you guys okay?” Jeno’s voice yells from somewhere in the next room, footsteps closely following.

Like pulled by a string, both Lucas and Mark take a step back at the same time, their hands losing the other’s touch, though it lingers on their skin a few seconds after it’s gone. Their hearts are thumping like crazy, their knees growing weak. It’s a blessing it’s dark outside and inside the house, or else their pink cheeks would be a dead giveaway to the feelings left unspoken in the air.

Their friends make their way into the hall, all four of them coming out from the practice room to look for the missing two. They know Mark’s tendency of sitting outside on the swing set Hyuck begged for them to have, and they’d wondered if rain had caught them out there. No one seems to notice the weird tension in the air when they get there, because they ask them to join them back without making a single joke or giving them a teasing look. 

Renjun offers to prepare some coffee, and Lucas accept gratefully, saying he should probably have just one cup because he must head home soon, and he follows everyone into the kitchen.

Mark feels his heart on his throat the entire time, caught in a vine full of thorns that won’t let him speak again, even if he tries to.

– _🎈_ _🎈_ _🎈_ –

It’s a little past 11 PM when he gets the call.

“Mark?” 

Ten’s voice is exactly as he remembers it– sweet and calm, almost like honey– but it’s got a sad undertone that doesn’t sit quite well with the younger.

“Hyung,” Mark says into the phone, heading towards his bed. Lucas has just gone home and this is the first time in years Ten calls, so whatever he may want to talk about is probably something he should hear while sitting down. “Hi. Lucas just went home, someone came to pick him up.”

“Oh, I know, honey. I actually want to talk to you,” Ten takes a deep breath. “... I know we haven’t talked in a while and this shouldn’t be the first thing I ask after everything’s that happened but…” he pauses, like looking for the right words inside his head.

Still, Mark knows.

He knows because of the tone on his voice, and he knows because it’s probably the exact same way he sounds. It’s also the exact same way he feels. Ever since what happened outside on his backyard, at the swing sets, since feeling Lucas’s hand around his own, there’s been a certain feeling of drowning that hasn’t let Mark take a proper deep breath.

He sighs. “No, Hyung,” he mumbles, looking down to his feet. “I haven’t told him.”

He must’ve hit jackpot because Ten doesn’t say anything after that. The only way Mark knows he’s still on the line is after he gets to hear his breathing. He wishes he could mimic it.

“I don’t know if I can.”

There’s a small sound on the other side, like a huff. “I know you’re scared, baby, and I understand,” Ten tells him, and Mark can tell he means it because he knows him, and he missed the kind of reassurance of his voice. He kinda missed the pet name, too. “... But you know you have to, right?”

Mark nods, even if the other can’t see him. He nods because he knows, and he can feel panic start to arise within him the same way it did before, his breathing becoming more rapid, more shallow.

“I love you, Mark, I really do. But I’ve spent the last year next to Xuxi and well…” Ten sighs. He doesn’t have to say much for Mark to understand. “You’ve gotten to know him recently. You care about him too, right?”

The other struggles to take a deep breath. “I do.”

“I heard him talk about you today, Mark. He thinks the world of you, and so do I… But he deserves to know. Especially considering...” he hesitates, like he doesn’t know if he should say it. “Considering the fact that I don’t think this is just a friendship anymore.”

The thought of Lucas earlier, holding his hand and growing closer, flashes through Mark’s mind. It makes him swallow.

“I know, hyung,” the younger runs a hand through his hair, messing it up, not knowing what to do. His fingernails dig into his palms, thoughts accelerating inside his head. He wants them to stop so he can breathe, but they won't. “I almost tell him today, I swear, but I just… Couldn’t. I know I have to tell him, but… Fuck, it’s so hard. If I do, I could lose him. And if I don’t, I could lose him anyway. I just...” he sighs, closing his eyes. “I just need time.”

When he speaks, Ten’s voice is so soft and understanding that it helps Mark’s heart slow down. “Hey, hey, let’s breathe first. It’s okay, you’ll be okay,” the older reassures him, making a constant  _ shhh _ sound to help the other calm down. “Inhale, count to 3, baby, remember. Hold it in,” he gives instructions and Mark follows, the same way they used to do it back in the day, when Ten was his literal guardian. “Now let it out.”

He does as he’s told. It works.

“It’s okay if you can’t tell him right now,” Ten says once he makes sure Mark is ready to continue. “I’m not trying to push you, honey, but I’m a publicist. I know how the media works. I want to protect both of you, but I can’t without him knowing.”

Ten’s right, he always is, and Mark’s been a celebrity long enough to know the media, too. He probably doesn’t know about it as much as the older does, but he’s seen what they’re capable of. If he’s seen more and more around Lucas, they’ll talk (and yeah, they already do, there’s already speculations about them, but they’ll increase), and if they talk, they’ll want to know more.

And if they find about  _ that  _ before Mark can tell Lucas himself...

“I can tell him if you want me to,” Ten mumbles.

Mark manages to take a deep breath, the same way Ten taught him to. He shakes his head no. “It has to be me. You promised not to tell him. It has to be me.”

Ten promised, over a year ago, he promised not to say a word. When Mark had called him in the middle of an anxiety attack, begging him to do him this one favor… he’d made the older promise never to speak of this again, and Ten had agreed.

“Okay, yeah, you’re right. It’s not up to me or anyone else to tell him,” he agrees, voice calm. It soothes Mark enough to let him breath. “I just want it to stop haunting you, Mark.”

“I want that, too,” the other agrees, finally finding his voice. “I’ll figure out a way to tell him before it’s too late.”

His friend sighs. “If you need anything, call me, okay? I’m here for you. Like always.”

“Like always.”

Ten breaks into a speech of how much he loves Mark, and on how he’s been missing him every day since they second he had to leave him behind. It’s both the truth and something meant to distract him, let him think of something else and ease down his mind. Mark allows himself to smile at the memory, lets Ten knows he loves and misses him, too (“ _ Could use you around to keep an eye on Johnny hyung, I’m afraid he’s wilding _ ,” he mumbles and Ten laughs).

They hang up 20 minutes later, after a lot of talking and remembering. The older has always known exactly what to say to make Mark feel at ease, feel like he can do anything, and it works just as well tonight.

Mark goes to bed with the idea that he’ll definitely tell Lucas soon.

He just has to find out how.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's a confession.

The sound of crumpling paper crackles through the room, followed closely by a frustrated noise.

Johnny asked him a few days ago to write a new song to release as a special, and Mark’s never felt so frustrated. He lets out another huff and glares down at his notebook, trying to ignore the jagged edge leftover from where he’d just ripped out a page.

“What did that poor notebook ever do to you?” Hyuck asks, peering at him over his phone. He’s sprawled out over the couch, content to laze around after their morning practice. Jaemin and Renjun are still in the basement practice room, playing around with new sounds, Jeno already gone for the day.

And Mark’s trying to come up with a song or two that don’t give him secondhand embarrassment just by reading it.

“My days as a lyricist are over,” he groans, more than a little overdramatically, as he slumps forward against the coffee table, notebook smooshed underneath his chest. His phone dings with an unread text from Lucas, but he ignores it. 

“Come on,” Donghyuck sighs, putting down his phone and holding out a hand expectantly. “Give it here.”

“No,” Mark grumbles, with all the self-composure of a five-year-old.

“Stop being a baby and let me help you,” his friend huffs. “You’re not going to get anywhere if you’re just moping around, and we need a new song. Empathy 2020 is around the corner, you know? We’ve got to give it our all.”

For a moment, Mark just pouts at him, his eyes narrowed as he tries to figure out whether to relinquish his lyrics or not, but finally he sighs and straightens himself up again, handing over the notebook.

Donghyuck takes it from him and runs his eyes over the last two pages, really trying not to frown at the embarrassingly few words Mark has scribbled around a couple of terrible doodles (like,  _ absolutely terrible.  _ Thank God he’s a musician, because he’d never make it as an artist).

And Donghyuck knows Mark– this can’t be everything. So he starts flipping and turning on the pages until he finds one with actual words on it, a page near the end, and the older’s eyes widen in panic as the tips of his ears turn bright red.

“Wait, that one’s not–” Mark blurts out, lunging forward to grab it back from the other, but unfortunately Hyuck has annoyingly fast reflexes and easily keeps it out of his reach.

“Not what?” the younger asks, a grin spreading across his face and a glint in his eyes that Mark knows spells trouble. “Did you write something steamy in here? Or maybe something embarrassing?”

“Hyuck!”

“Let’s see what we have here…” Donghyuck says, licking his lips as he starts to read the lyrics scrawled messily across the last page. After a moment or two, though, the grin slips slowly off his face. Mark slumps down on the coffee table again and braces himself for humiliation.

However, when Hyuck speaks again, his voice isn’t pitying or teasing – it’s almost impressed. 

“... These are good,” he says. For a moment, Mark hesitates, but finally he lifts his head up off the table again, peering at his friend warily, still half-expecting to see a smirk on his face. “I mean, you being all lovey-dovey over Xuxi is gross and _so_ not very punk-rock of you but these…” he shrugs, handing the notebook back to his friend. “These are good.”

“Yeah?” Mark blurts out, before his brain to mouth filter kicks in.

“I guess I thought that if you ever wrote a sad love song, it would be about me,” Hyuck jokes to clear the mood, and it oddly works. The older feels a lot less judged than he thought he would, but he can’t avoid the question that spills out of Hyuck’s lips next. “So, you’re telling him, huh? Everything?”

The older shrugs slightly. “Kind of."

The lyrics written on the page are both a confession and an apology. Mark wrote about everything he wishes he could say, about the feelings that have been blossoming inside his chest and the thorn-like guilt that won’t let them bloom. There’s a double meaning in between the words, lyrics he wrote the night he’d spoken to Ten, when it was 3 AM and he couldn’t sleep, and the thought of Lucas’s hand holding his own wouldn’t leave his mind.

“We can pass it off as a song to the fans,” Donghyuck offers, getting back to scrolling down his phone. “Though Xuxi would be an actual idiot not to know the meaning behind it.”

“Is it that obvious?”

“Please,” his friend laughs a tad bit too loudly. “You think you’re so sneaky, talking about red balloons and late night texts?”

Yeah, he’s probably not being subtle at all.

Mark melts back into his seat, eyes falling on the notebook in his lap. He runs his fingers through the words, wonders if he should put himself out there like that. It’s not like he’s actually saying his name, but it might as well be plastered all around those lyrics. Still, he has to tell him. Both about the way he feels and about that thing that’s been haunting him for so long.

If he tells him, maybe it’ll be okay.

If he tells him, maybe Lucas will understand.

– _🎈_ _🎈_ _🎈_ –

It’s their 3rd year anniversary as a band.

They hold a small concert at a venue smaller than where they usually perform in. The show itself is rather exclusive, and it’s really just for celebrating the band’s anniversary and upcoming performance at Empathy 2020. They’ve performed a few of their oldest songs and are surprised to hear the audience knows every single one of them, even those that used to be nothing but demos.

The stage trembles beneath their feet, the tremors travelling up their legs, along their spines and sending a delicious thrill through their limbs, adrenaline into their bloodstream. This is where they belong, on stage. It would be a lie to say any of them don’t deserve to be there, because they do.

Even if Mark doesn’t fully believe that about himself.

“Thank you, everyone!” Jeno speaks after they’re done with one of their most recent songs, after the crowd’s cheer have become slightly more quiet. “Thank you for being here tonight! Will we be seeing you at Empathy 2020?”

The crowd answers with screams that erupt across the pit, a wave of enthusiastic nods and flailing limbs.

“Can’t believe we’re performing there. Still feels like it was only yesterday when we were composing songs for fun inside our dorm room at DR,” Jaemin chuckles into his mic, nostalgia hitting everyone hard. Mark inhales sharply, a shaky breath that he struggles to get past the lump in his throat. He wasn’t yet part of that  _ we _ back then.

Everything they’ve accomplished they’ve done it together. Through hard work, dedication and teamwork, they’ve managed to get here, with more than a few hardships on the way. It was a bumpy journey, one spattered with years of fall outs and severed relationships. Mark had missed out on most of that.

But at the end of the day, they’re here together. And that’s all that really matters to the rest.

“Our Mark Lee has actually been working on a new song,” Hyuck suddenly says, receiving a surprised squeal from the crowd.

Mark shoots him a look that reads  _ What the fuck are you doing,  _ but the cacophony of excited screams and surprised squeals only further fuel Donghyuck’s playful teasing. He grasps the microphone, his grip as tight as the hold of anxiety around Mark’s throat.

“Please do anticipate it.”

– _🎈_ _🎈_ _🎈_ –

“I said I was sorry.”

“Piss off, Hyuck.”

They’re at one of the many bars nearing the concert venue they just came out from. Johnny had invited most of tonight’s staff out for drinks, to celebrate the band’s 3rd anniversary and thank them for their hard work. Mark’s squeezed between Donghyuck and one of the newer staff members in the middle of the table, and since he can’t quite storm out of there without looking like a kid throwing a tantrum, he decides he might as well drink.

He snatches the nearest glass of soju, tossing his head back to chug down the content. It burns in the back of his throat, and he slams it back down onto the table with an indignant huff. He closes his eyes tightly, feels them watering slightly from the sting, and lets out a bitter breath in disgust. He never has been the best at holding his liquor.

An arm slips down to wrap his shoulders, bringing him into the familiar heat of the giggly vocalist.

“Oi, don’t be mad at me,” Hyuck drawls, teetering on the cusp between tipsy and full on hammered. His eyelashes flutter, a drowsy blink of his lids as he chuckles. “It’s not like I lied. You have a song, and it’s good.”

Mark grunts, wrestling himself free from his grip— the boy sure does get clingy when drunk.

Jeno takes a swig of his drink, gulping it down with a pinched expression. “I’m just offended this is the first time we’re hearing about it.”

“Yeah,” Renjun complains. “How come we didn’t know about this? And how come, out of all people,  _ Hyuck _ knew?”

Donghyuck shoots him a dirty look and sticks his tongue out at him, and Renjun does the same.

“It’s none of your business. And it was none of Hyuck’s business, either, he read through my notebook,” Mark grumbles, finally unraveling himself from Hyuck’s clutches and crossing his arms over his chest, a defensive stance that he’s wholly convinced will deter them from prying any further.

It doesn’t, especially not after Hyuck decides to throw in his two cents.

“‘S about a certain tall, tan guitarist we know,” he tells them, either completely unaware or just plain out ignoring the holes Mark bores into the side of his face.

“Ah,” Jaemin snickers then, shooting the older a suggestive look before downing his own glass. “So it’s a thirst song about Lucas, huh?”

Mark can’t help the blush that spreads across the apples of his cheeks, the bridge of his nose.

“More of an apology.”

And, seriously, can someone take Donghyuck home?

Jeno frowns slightly. “What do you mean an apology?”

Mark shakes his head no. “It’s nothing.”

“What are you apologizing for?”

“I’m not–”

“‘Cuz of what happened!” Hyuck mumbles, his words coming out slurred. “Y’know, the  _ thingaboutour _ ...” he says, the last bit completely unintelligible. His eyes start to fall closed and he stumbles a little in his seat, and then he’s leaning over the shoulder of the staff member next to him, near knocked out.

Mark can’t even bring himself to be mad at him. His friend is  _ seriously _ shitfaced by this point and not even making proper sense, so how can he be mad at that? Still, the others are too confused right now and if he doesn’t explain himself, they might ask again tomorrow, when he won’t be able to blame it all on the alcohol.

“It’s not an apology,” Mark tries to turn it around, though he isn’t convinced it’s a better idea. That’s why, when he speaks next, he almost whispers. “ _ ‘ssaconfession _ .”

Jeno and Renjun narrow their eyes.

Jaemin growls. “You guys are in some serious need of subtitles, because we can’t understand  _ shit _ ,” he complains, cracking another bottle open. “It’s a  _ what? _ ”

“A confession!” Mark blurts out, annoyed.

And, of course, he’s teased for it. His friends start yelling and cheering, saying things like  _ I knew it! _ and  _ Our Mark is all grown up now! _ and they’re being so loud the other convinces himself it really wasn’t a good idea. 

At least they’ve let go of the apology thing. He’ll get there when he has to.

They walk back to the cars, ready to go home.

Donghyuck has woken up (barely) and is leaning against Mark and one of the designated drivers between the staff, humming a song that doesn’t really exist but has a good sound. Maybe Mark should record it so they don’t forget.

“Markie,” the younger sing-songs, being pushed into the car. “I’m sorry I spilled about your song, Markie.”

His friend huffs, shaking his head slightly. “It’s fine. We’re gonna play it next week anyway. I’ll tell him and it’ll be okay,” Mark sighs, helping Donghyuck put on his seatbelt. “Hopefully.”

There’s a small silence as the rest get inside the car and the driver turns on the engine, the conversation seemingly done and forgotten.

A few seconds later, though, Donghyuck sighs, too.

“Better sooner than later, Mark,” he says, a sad, drunken, smile on his lips. “Better sooner than later.”

– _🎈_ _🎈_ _🎈_ –

People have always speculated about Mark’s (non-existent) love life.

But boy, will they talk after this.

He feels more on edge with each passing day before the festival, as he waits for Lucas to put two and two together on his own, but he never does. After the moment they shared at Mark’s place, the talk on the swing set, the rain falling over them– after how close they seemed to be, Mark figured that it’d be only a matter of time before Lucas knew. 

But he never did.

Up until now, he doesn’t even seem worried about the possibility that Mark might be in love with him, at least judging by the way he continues to use his body as a pillow whenever he pleases. Really, at this point, it’s probably best for Mark to just follow Lucas’s lead and act as he always does. Of course, that’s easier said than done.

And then Empathy 2020 arrives.

“You look tense.”

Mark startles and nearly drops his guitar as he whips around to face Lucas, who has apparently decided that sneaking up behind him backstage is a good idea.

“I’m not tense,” he protests, although he can actually feel his shoulders stiffening as he looks at the other.

“You’re a terrible liar,” Lucas snorts, taking a step closer to Mark. The younger only barely resists the urge to take a step back.

“I’ll be fine,” Mark finally mutters, deciding to give up on arguing.

For a moment, Lucas’s quiet, but then he says, “Is it the new song?”

“What?” Mark asks, heart caught on his throat.

“Is that why you’re tense?” Lucas asks, studying Mark carefully. “You said it’s a lot more personal than your previous songs have been.”

He’d heard about it the day after Trigger The Fever’s anniversary concert. Lucas had texted Mark something along the lines of  _ why didn’t you tell me !!! _ followed by a frowny face, and demanded to know everything about this new song his friend was working on.

He doesn’t know how, but Mark had somehow convinced Lucas to wait, telling him that he wanted him to hear it when it was done.

Mark hesitates then, but quickly answers, “Yeah, a little.” He forces a smile. “But I’ll be fine once I get into the swing of things. I always have fun performing.”

There’s currently some German house DJ playing on stage. When she tells them to shout, they scream, and when she tells them to dance, they stomp on the hard-packed ground, cheering and grinding and jumping around. The music thrums so heavily Mark’s heart is beating double time– or maybe it’s just Lucas’s smile in front of him. Or the scenery he’s about to step into, the ground packed with people and the sky packed with stars, their number being the last of the night. 

“That’s because you’re  _ yourself _ while performing,” Lucas tells him, bring a hand up to pinch at Mark’s cheek. “And I love to see that.”

The younger doesn’t even have the time to process that last bit, because suddenly a staff member yells “ _ Trigger The Fever, you’re next! I need you here for instructions! _ ” and then Lucas is wishing him good luck, messing his hair and running back to where his friends are watching the show.

It’s all a blur inside Mark’s head.

The rest of his bandmates circle around him and listen to the instructions the lady gives them, nodding in understanding and thanking her for the advice. Mark can’t even remember a single word of what she said, too focused on thinking  _ We’re next _ and  _ This is it _ and  _ If this doesn’t go well I’m canceling myself. _

And then they’re sent out there.

No one will realize, Mark tries to tell himself as he steps out onto the stage. No one will realize he’s basically about to declare his uttermost embarrassing feelings for Wong Lucas.

Except, hopefully, Lucas himself.

They open with “Dunk Shot” which goes over well– better than well, if the cheers are any indication. After that, they perform a couple of older songs, and Mark can’t help but feel a little nostalgic as he listens and remembers where they started–  _ how _ it started also comes to his head, but he shakes the memory away. He can’t bring himself to think about that right now, not when he’s about to perform the new song.

It’s when they get there that his knees actually begin to tremble.

“Everyone, thank you for being here! Recently we celebrated our three year anniversary as a band, and we couldn’t be more grateful to you guys for keeping up with us,” Hyuck says, grinning against his microphone. “It’s been an absolute blast to share this journey with you, so we want to say thanks in our own little way. Remember how I said our lovely Mark was working on a new song?”

The crowd turns into a garbled mess of hollering.

Mark takes a deep breath, releases it slowly. He turns his head, to the right-wing of the stage, and his eyes meet Lucas’s. The taller boy offers him a thumbs up and his trademark smile, the one that sends all of Mark’s blood to his cheeks, and, hopefully, he’ll think it’s because of the stage lights (not that it matters– not after he’s about to perform  _ that _ song).

“This is a song from us to you,” Hyuck announces, glancing over at Mark and winking. Then turns back to the audience. “It’s called  _ ‘Rouge’ _ .”

Cue the music.

Mark strums the strings of his red electric guitar to the beat of Jaemin’s drums, his fingers dancing across the instrument's neck as easily as breathing. Spoken words might not be his forte, but music is like a third language to him, and one he speaks fluently. Hyuck’s clean vocals begin to mix nicely with the blend of instruments behind him as he starts to sing the first verse, and Mark realizes just then how sad yet hopeful the composition sounds. He really wishes this song is enough to make Lucas finally figure things out, because God knows he’ll pass out if later on he has to explain what’s happening on this stage.

His heart is beating fast in his chest as he plays, sauntering across the stage towards Hyuck as he sings.

At its heart, the song’s about all things red– roses, cherries, someone’s lips. Then it turns into a more direct poem, a list of things that happen to someone when their loved one steps into the picture. Hyuck sings:

_ It all turns red, and I lose my breath, _

_ My cheeks when you’re near,  _

_ my heart against my chest, _

_ If I don’t say it now, I’m afraid I’ll faint, _

_ Tonight’s stage is yours, baby _

_ In this song I’ll confess _

Not even once does Mark turn around to see if Lucas is listening. It would be difficult to meet his eyes while playing a song about all the embarrassing things he makes him feel, so Mark closes his eyes like he’s feeling the music instead. The next verse sounds way too loud inside his ears, the one that has Lucas’s name written all over it.

He hopes he’s listening.

_ 99 red balloons you want, _

_ I’d go outside, get them all plus one, _

_ Just say the word, I’ll get it done, _

_ To show you I’m sorry, I’ll do anything, my love _

– _🎈_ _🎈_ _🎈_ –

The rest of the concert passes in something of a blur.

Vaguely, Mark’s aware of the chords his fingers play and the cheering of the crowd, but it’s mostly overridden by the steady thrum of anxiety in the back of his mind and the phantom sensation of Lucas’s eyes over him.

In fact, it’s not until the afterparty that Mark really comes back down to earth, and that’s only because he realizes he’s been staring at Lucas from across the room for at least five minutes straight. The taller’s as uninvolved in his own chat as Mark is, but he’s still politely smiling and nodding at whatever Jeno tells him, not daring to glance back at the big, caramel eyes that stare at him from across the room.

Mark forces a smile as he turns to look at the poor girl that’s been trying to get his attention for God knows how long, and grits out a weak excuse before heading for the nearest exit.

He pushes through the door and out into the crisp night air.

The alleyway is dingy and uncomfortably damp looking, but at least it’s deserted, and Mark leans heavily against the outside wall of the club, enjoying the way cold air hits his face and clears his thoughts. He hasn’t really drunk much tonight– if only two beers, one he accepted as he walked in, and another one Hyuck handed to him while saying “ _ You’ll need it _ ” before walking away with Renjun to talk to some of the other artists that played on the festival– but he almost feels lightheaded, like he’s  _ really _ about to faint if he doesn’t get to talk to Lucas soon.

Mark lets out a frustrated noise. 

Briefly, he wishes he could go back in time and burn that damn love song so Hyuck would never have found it in the first place. The fear of knowing what Lucas thought of tonight has been haunting him since they were off stage, since they were invited to this suffocating party and forced to part ways. He’s caught glimpses of his eyes in between all the people crammed in there, but they’re always too short or too unreadable. 

“I’m such a fucking idiot,” he mutters, rubbing a hand over his face.

He tilts his head back, looking up at the late-night sky. He can only see a sliver of it around the skyscrapers, but what little he can make out of it is pretty, deep blue lit up by the soft glow of the full moon.

After a minute or two, he finally feels his heart rate steady to something less nervous.

“Finally, you’re alone.”

And his heartbeat trips back into overtime.

“Xuxi,” Mark sputters, looking over to find Lucas making his way through the dim alley. “I – um – I’m...” he trails off awkwardly. “I didn’t know you were still here.”

Lies, blatant lies.

Lucas smiles slightly, finally coming to a stop in front of Mark. His eyes are a little out of focus, their usual spark absent, almost like he’s being careful. He can’t be drunk, because Mark didn’t see him have a single drop of alcohol throughout the entire night, but his mind still makes him believe he might be in order to bring at least some sort of relief.

Otherwise, why would Lucas seem this nervous?

“Can I join you?,” he asks, almost shyly.

“Me? Here?” Mark mumbles, looking around him as if the other could really be talking to someone else. “I mean– yeah. Sure. I mean… Yeah.”

Maybe he should stop talking.

Lucas moves so he can rest his back against the wall, next to Mark. He just stands there for a few seconds, both his hands inside his pockets, breath coming out in small clouds because of the cold. They can hear the music booming inside the club, though it sounds dull, like it’s too far away. There’s also the noise of cars driving past, the wheels running over puddles of water left from the last couple of rainy days. Overall it’s just city sounds, and Mark almost allows himself to relax.

Almost.

“Your song...” Lucas’s voice suddenly says, way too loud in Mark’s ears even though the other’s speaking quietly. “It’s good, I mean,I– I liked it... A lot.”

Mark doesn’t really dare to turn around. “Yeah?”

“Yeah. It was... Beautiful. Your lyrics are always beautiful.”

The younger can feel his cheeks flushed hot, his stomach growing heavy. His heart is basically pounding in his throat, threatening to break out, and he thinks that, if he doesn’t say it now, he probably never will. “Lucas, I have to tell you–”

He gets cuts off. “I know.”

“You do?”

The other nods. “Yeah... Or well, I  _ think _ I know.”

He feels it– a touch on his wrist. Lucas is calling for his attention, silently, approaching slowly as to not scare the other away. Mark looks up.

His skin tingles there, where he’s being touched, heart beating erratically inside his chest so hard that he thinks it might burst out. Lucas’s eyes are staring into him the same way they always have, with so much care and understanding it makes Mark’s knees tremble. There are butterflies–no,  _ lions _ – in his stomach, running around and going wild, but it feels good.

Unconsciously, the younger finds himself wetting his mouth with his tongue, and a shiver runs down his spine as the other’s eyes track the movement.

“This is going to be so awkward if I’m wrong,” Lucas says, smiling softly, and for a moment Mark feels like he can’t breathe. There’s so little space between them.

“Wrong about what?” he manages, gulping down when the other takes a step closer.

Instead of replying verbally, Lucas leans in and presses their lips together.

The heat that builds low in his stomach, along with the alcohol in his system, enhance all of his senses, and he can feel Lucas with every inch of him. His lips, his hands, his breath on his skin. The distant sweetness he can taste on his tongue makes it embarrassingly addicting. 

Mark’s just slightly tipsy, but Lucas isn’t near drunk at all– he knows what he’s doing. His hands are on both sides of Mark’s head, and his thumb is rubbing circles against the apples of his cheeks, and the kiss is not nearly as awkward or desperate as Mark had expected it to feel.

It’s warm, and slow, and it lasts just a second too long.

And he becomes so addicted that he actually trails back for it when Lucas finally decides to pull away.

Then he smiles. 

“I’ve been waiting to do that since that day at the swing sets,” the taller admits, the shyest laugh Mark has ever heard escaping from his lips.

Oh, how he wants to hear it over and over.

Mark doesn’t say anything– he simply stands on his tiptoes and leans his head closer, allows his lips to meet Lucas’s one more time. Gentle but a lot more eager than the last, he presses his lips into the other’s, the same way he’d been waiting to for a while now. Lucas’s heart flutters, and he kisses back, cherishing the moment and everything Mark– Mark’s lips, Mark’s hands at the back of his head, Mark’s breath hitching against his skin. 

The world around them slows down so they can be in this moment. 

The younger knows, deep down, that he’s still got something left to say. He’s still got to tell Lucas the truth, the whole truth, the second meaning to the song that led them here. Because as much as he likes Lucas, as much as he wants to keep on doing this forever, part of him knows that he shouldn’t be enjoying it so much. Part of him knows that there’s still something left to say.

But it doesn’t matter.

He’ll say it tomorrow, he’ll say it the day after that, it’s not important right now.

Right now, all he wants to focus on is Lucas’s lips on his own.

– _🎈_ _🎈_ _🎈_ –

Getting back to the party isn’t easy.

They kiss for more than just a few minutes in that alley, smile against each other’s lips, tell the other words that sound way too embarrassing out loud but that come from their hearts, words they’ve been dying to tell each other for more than just a few days. 

Getting back to the party isn’t easy, because they can’t just walk in hand in hand and kiss in front of everyone, not without first figuring out what’s going on between them. 

They get back and try to act like everything’s cool, like nothing’s happened, but their friends know them too well– they seem happier, lighter, like they don’t have a care in the world. It’s a big contrast to the nervous wreck he first walked in with, but Donghyuck doesn’t say anything. He allows Mark to keep it to himself for tonight.

He even allows him to leave in the same cab Lucas does after the party’s done, a little past 2 AM.

They have things to do tomorrow morning, places to be at, and it’s just slightly annoying that they can’t spend the rest of the night together, but they take what they can get.

They sit close, too close, in the back seat of the car, hands linked together in the dark and laughing over dumb stuff the whole way, enjoying their time alone together. Lucas even dares to sneak a peck into Mark’s lips, not caring if they’re seen by the driver, not caring if he can recognize them. Mark’s cheeks turn instantly red– bright red, to be quite honest– and he punches Lucas’s shoulder but doesn’t say anything.

Instead, he laughs.

He laughs because he’s happy, laughs because he can’t believe it, laughs because he never would’ve thought it would end up like this. Lucas has his arm around his shoulders and he’s mumbling nonsense into his ear, and he’s  _ so _ close and  _ so  _ warm and  _ so  _ addictive Mark actually pouts when the cab pulls over outside his place.

Lucas presses a kiss to his temple, promises him they’ll talk tomorrow morning, and then he’s out of the car and heading into the apartment building.

Mark watches him as he walks through the front way, swinging his head a little and walking calmly. He looks happy, as happy as the other feels right now, and when he gets to the entrance of the building he turns around and shoots Mark a finger heart that sends him laughing down his seat.

The cab then moves again, onto the next stop to Mark’s place, and all the way there he can’t help but think  _ I could look at him smile forever  _ and then hide his face behind his hands. Cheesy. Gross. When did Mark even become either of that? He doesn’t know, but he doesn’t mind either.

All that matters right now is Lucas– his hands, his lips, the promise of tomorrow.

Nothing else matters but him.

– _💥_ _💥_ _💥_ –

@allrocksk:

**FORMER DREAM RECORDS EMPLOYEE REVEALS COMPANY SECRETS. MARK LEE IN THE EYE OF THE STORM.**

Dream Records find themselves in yet another scandal.

Last night, at approximately 2:20 AM, a blog entry titled  _ The Truth About Dream Records  _ was posted to a public music blog by an anonymous user _.  _ In  the post , which has already reached over a million likes, the writer confesses to be a former Dream Records employee who worked there for a few years, stating that they are  _ “tired of fans not knowing the kind of people they support.”  _ The post contains a few complaints of staff mistreatment and exploitation, where the user describes in detail what they were asked to do inside the company. The veracity of the information was quickly questioned, but the post contains never before seen pictures of the inside of the record company, as well as behind-the-scenes of music video shootings and photoshoots.

“ _ When you work in entertainment you know you’re probably gonna have to fight your way to the top, _ ” the anonymous user types afterward. “ _ Inside Dream Records, this is not always the case. They have no problem taking advantage of their position to succeed, even at the expense of others.” _

The user then drops the bomb that has left all netizens demanding an explanation from the record label.

“ _ Well known guitarist Mark Lee is the prime example of this, since he’d secured his debut way before any other Dream Records trainee had. If you ever wondered how was he able to get selected for one DR’s most anticipated projects after so little training, the answer is simple. How could he not, when his father is record producer and Dream Records’ founder, Lee Soo Man?” _

To add to the controversy, the user then reveals that the band’s manager, Johnny Suh, is the eldest son of the company’s CEO, making him Mark’s older brother.

Netizens have been speculating whether or not this was the reason former Dream Records trainee, Wong Lucas lost his spot inside the band. Many remember the See The V guitarist being heavily rumored to be part of the Trigger The Fever lineup, only to not make the cut in the end. Did Mark Lee take advantage of his heritage despite knowing this could’ve been Wong’s only chance to succeed?

“ _ They’re called Dream Records,”  _ the user says _ , “but dreams seem to be the last thing they make come true _ .”


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "We have a lot of explaining to do."

  1. [+295, -26] i knew there was something off when they debuted mark ㅋㅋ dream records pulled him out of nowhere even tho they had a bunch of other guitarists beside lucas waiting for debut


  1. [+184, -15] u can’t keep his name out of your mouths lmao... mark’s pretty and talented and y’all hate to see it


  1. [+176, -15] so lucas was really going to debut with TTF... ㅠㅠ


  1. [+140, -13] family connections or not, mark would’ve still debuted with trigger the fever ㅋㅋ lucas isn’t on his level


  1. [+86, -8] lucas could do dunk shot but mark could NEVER do moonwalk. Period.


  1. [+52, -3] so what? lucas is already signed on label v and doing great lmao who cares about this drama


  1. [+33, -0] MARK WORLD DOMINATION


  1. [+17, -0] it has always worked this way ㅋㅋ why is everyone acting brand new. Leave Mark alone


  1. [+13, -0] lucas always deserved better. Glad he left that shitty label company


  1. [+6, -0] So Mark practically stole Lucas spot… Sucks to see that he got fame handed to him on a silver platter while Lucas had to fight for it. I wonder how he’s feeling after reading this... He and Mark were beginning to seem like good friends.



_____

It’s confusing.

He’d done everything to be there– he’d worked hard, he’d trained for years, he had the potential. He’d been promised a spot, a place that was meant to be his, right there, next to his friends. All he needed was a yes.

He’d been late.

He’d gotten an  _ I’m sorry. _

He didn’t blame Mark, how could he? He’d worked just as hard! He’d proven he had it all– he was talented and nice and he’d been training just like Lucas had. He deserved that, too!

_ He’s DR President’s son? _

Mark? The same Mark he’d started to fall for?

Lucas had been pulled out so he could get in.

Was that fair?

Could he blame him for that?

Did Mark know?

It’s confusing.

He tries not to think much of it, but his heart breaking is louder than he’d expect.

_____

He’s not answering.

Mark’s been trying all morning, but he’s not answering.

He hits speed-dial for Lucas, no answer. He calls again, heart racing faster– no answer. Again– no answer. Again– no answer. No Lucas. Mark’s eyes scan his other contacts and the panic grows, who else can he call? In seconds he’s curled tight in his bed, his only movement the trembling of his limbs and salty tears darkening his sleeves.

He calls again.

“ _ Fuck _ ,” he exclaims after the 30th time the phone tells him that  _ The person you are trying to reach is unavailable at this time, please try your call later.  _ He throws it to the other side of the bed, feels like throwing it against the wall and smash it until it’s useless, but then he wouldn’t have any other way of contacting Lucas again.

Lucas.

Mark’s such a  _ fucking _ idiot. 

The room starts spinning around him and he’s curled tight in his bed, trying to make everything slow to something his brain and body can cope with. He feels sick. He wants to call Lucas again but the phone is too far away, it's too far away, it's too far away. He doesn't even know if he even has the energy to call.  _ What's his number, I need to call, it’s too far away, he's hates me, it’s over, breathe, over, his number, too far away... He hates me... I hate myself... _

It’s a fucking nightmare.

He can’t leave his bed. All his fears are tumbling out unchecked by his brain, he’s in some kind of mental free-fall, unable to analyze things or assess risks. He’s  _ thinkingthinkingthinking _ . What can he do? Where should he go?

He should go to Lucas.

Mark jumps from his bed and moves about the room like there's a hurricane inside him. He moves like his brain is demanding the energetic expenditure of an athlete but won't tell his limbs what to do. His eyes are wild and desperate as he looks for whatever clean clothes he can find, a random pair of shoes that don’t even match, and he can’t find his jacket but it doesn’t matter.

He has to go.

He doesn’t even know what he’s going to do or say once he gets there. Has Lucas read the article?  _ Of course he has, you fucking idiot, _ he reprimands himself. Otherwise he would pick up his damn calls. Mark’s thoughts are like a whirlwind going a thousand miles per hour, making questions, making assumptions, calling himself an idiot over an over.

How could this ever happen?

Who could do such a thing?

He runs down the stairs, jumps down two at a time, and he’s about to fly out the door when he hears it– the whispering. Mark walks into the living room, expecting to see Lucas there. He expects to find him there, anywhere.

Instead, he walks in to find his brother, then Yuta. And behind them…

Ten.

Mark’s brain puts two and two together, even if they don’t match.

“...  _ You piece of shit, _ ” words spill from his lips before he can even stop himself to try and think. He doesn’t. His friend and brother seem surprised from hearing this, because their heads turn to him and look at him like he’s gone insane. 

Ten frowns, and he tries letting out a stern, “ _ Mark _ ,” but his voice comes out shaky instead.

The younger runs past the others in the living room and straight towards him, hands balled into fists and ready to throw a punch.  _ A former Dream Records employee who worked there for a few years, complaints of mistreatment, knew about my father and my brother. Knew about Lucas.  _ Mark’s blind with everything– rage and sorrow and confusion and pain, and he can’t think straight and he can’t stop himself from launching directly towards the man he once thought of as his friend.

His fist collides right against Ten’s mouth and it hurts, but he swings again.

It doesn’t land.

Someone holds him back, strong arms wrapped around him restraining him from taking a step further. Johnny.

“ _ Mark _ , calm down,” his brother demands, using the same voice he’s always used to scold over the other. “I said calm down!”

But Mark can’t hear him. “How could you?!” he yells, voice breaking. He can’t stop thinking, he can’t stop hurting. “You promised not to tell him, you said you were there for me! Like always! Fuck that, right?”

“I didn’t tell him  _ shit _ !” Ten screams back and– oh, Yuta’s holding him back. If he didn’t, the younger’s slightly scared he might have jumped on him, too, considering the way he’s kicking his legs up in the air. His bottom lip is swollen and slightly bleeding. Mark can feel it in his knuckles. “You think I’d do something like that, Mark?! You think I’d sell you out like that?! After  _ everything _ I’ve done for you, you fucking– kid?!”

He’s right, but Mark can’t hear him, he can’t. Everything hurts and everything sucks and his mind is going  _ LucasLucasLucas _ and he can’t make it stop. He can't breathe. Everything is spinning and it feels as if the ground is melting under his feet, and he collapse onto Johnny’s arms, breathing shallow and quick, burning hot tears streaming down his cheeks.

Why is he crying? Why is he so angry?

Why is Lucas not here?

“It’s okay, it’s okay,” Johnny mumbles against his ears. “I got you. It’s okay. Count to three.”

_____

It takes him over 20 minutes to calm down.

Johnny has disappeared into the kitchen to prepare him tea, and Yuta’s gone with him God knows what for. Ten sits on one end of the couch, opposite to Mark, a pack of ice pressed to his mouth. The younger can tell he’s pissed off– and he’s got a right to be. 

“I’m sorry,” he mumbles. His feet are up on the couch and he’s hugging his knees close to his chest. His cheeks feel sticky from dried out tears he still hasn’t wiped away. “I wasn’t thinking.”

“Clearly,” is all Ten says.

Then they go back to silence.

Johnny comes back with a small silver tray, balancing three cups of steaming hot liquid and a can in them. Yuta walks right behind him with a similar tray, but this one holding a cup of milk, a few packets of sugar, three small spoons and a straw. The setting is almost funny, how it contrasts to the chaos that erupted a few moments ago.

The taller offers Ten the black can. “Iced coffee for you and your busted lip,” he says, smiling ever so slightly. Ten gives him a deadly glare, but he takes the can from his friend anyway. Yuta hands him the straw. “Here you go, Mark,” Johnny then offers his brother one of the cups. “Be careful, it’s hot. Chamomile tea. It’ll help reduce the anxiety.”

He always knows what’s best for him, so Mark accepts the drink, the heat of the cup immediately warming his hands. The first sip makes him feel instantly better.

“... Where’s Hyuck?” he asks after realizing his friend isn’t there.

Johnny and Yuta have taken a seat on the couch, in between him and Ten to keep an eye on the both of them. Mark notices Yuta has his hand on his brother’s back and he’s rubbing circles, but he doesn’t say anything. 

“I sent him out to go look for your bandmates,” Johnny says, terribly calmly, preparing his own cup of coffee. “We have some explaining to do, don’t you think?”

After all, they must’ve read the article, too. None of them knew a thing, except Hyuck.

Mark takes a deep breath, the first he’s been able to since this morning. “... I want to talk to Lucas.”

The name brings silence over the room. 

His brother and Yuta turn around to look at Ten, who’s silently sipping his coffee through the good side of his mouth. It makes Mark feel guilty again.

“He’s not going to answer,” he suddenly says, setting the black can down on the coffee table with a tud. When he finally raises his sight to look at Mark, the younger  _ really _ sees him– he looks tired, eyes adorned by bags that say he didn’t sleep well last night, hair messy and falling over his forehead. There’s dry blood on his bottom lip, right there where Mark’s fist slammed into, but what weights the younger down the most are the words he speaks. “He wouldn’t even let us into his room.”

Ten had tried all morning. He’d knocked and called and yelled, even threatened a bit, for Lucas to open up the door and talk to him, but it’d been useless. There was no answer, no complaints. There had just been silence.

“I left Kun in charge of trying to talk to him while I came here. I wanted to check on you, too.”

He’s talking to Mark, but the younger’s too embarrassed to meet his eyes again. 

He’s a real fucking idiot. “I’m sorry.”

“How could you even  _ think _ it was me the one to post that article?” Ten complains, clear hurt on his voice.

Mark swallows. “T-They said it was someone who used to work with us. They knew about me. They’d been mistreated...”

“ _ All _ of your staff is mistreated, Mark,” Ten snarls, nose scrunching. “But no matter the shit they’d put me through, I would’ve never said a thing about you or Johnny,” he shakes his head, looks down to his lap. “I love you two. You are the only good in between all that chaos.”

Johnny moves a little to put a hand on Ten’s knee. The other one welcomes it gratefully, holds Johnny’s hand and squeezes it a little. Mark had always thought of Ten as yet another older brother because that’s how he acted towards him, but to Johnny he was a best friend. He always had his back, helped him clean after the mess their father created.

Ten could never do anything to hurt them, but Mark had just done something to hurt him. Literally.

He’s the fucking worst.

“Johnny said your dad’s been firing a bunch of staff,” Yuta turns to explain to the younger. “It could’ve been anyone, you know? They talk a lot of shit between them.”

“But how could they know?” Mark mumbles, too naive to realize on his own.

His brother purses his lips. “There’s staff with you almost 24/7. Someone must’ve heard something somewhere. Have you talked about all this recently?”

Oh.

Backstage, while getting their hair and makeup done. On set, while waiting to film a music video or a TV show. On the car, as they were being taken to schedules.

And that night, when all of them and their staff went out for some drinks– Mark and Hyuck had talked about it recklessly, like they were the only people in the room.

It makes him want to melt down into the couch.

“ _ We’re home _ !” Donghyuck’s distinctive voice says, the sound of the door being closed right after.

“We’re in the living room!” Yuta yells back.

Mark can hear several different footsteps walking in this direction, and the lack of voices send chills running down his back. As much as he wants to get out of this place and go look for Lucas, he knows he must answer to his friends first– he’s also been hiding things from them, and for a longer amount of time. 

We have a lot of explaining to do, his brother had said.

And so his bandmates walk into the room, and all that explaining has to begin.

_____

They all sit on the couch, as if an intervention was about to take place.

Ten is now standing somewhere by the window, arms crossed over his chest. Hyuck is right next to him, not being too subtle about the way he’s staring at the older’s swollen lip, wondering what the hell happened before he left this place an hour ago.

Johnny has placed two of the dining table chairs in front of the couch, and he and Mark take a seat there, like professors about to give a lecture, or detectives about to question a few suspects. Yuta stands behind Johnny’s chair, both his hands placed over the older’s shoulders.

Mark can not only feel, but practically see all of his friends eyes on him, and he doesn’t know if he should wait for them to ask anything or start talking now. Every passing second makes his heart beat faster, his breath shorten.

Jaemin’s the first to crack. “I just want to know if what that article says is real or a bunch of bullshit.”

Mark’s lucky Johnny’s there to do this with him. 

“It is real,” the older says, and the three on the couch raise their eyebrows in surprise. They were probably not expecting them to admit it so easily. “Mark and I are brothers, and the founder of Dream Records is both our father and our boss.”

“Why not just say that from the beginning?” Renjun asks then, slowly gaining the confidence to make the questions that pop inside his head.

“Can’t be sure, but we were given strict instructions not to tell anyone about it.”

“Hyuck knew.”

From his spot on the window, Donghyuck says, “It was an accident. Mark got crazy hammered one night and it just spilled. I promised not to tell anyone.”

Mark actually remembers that night, around two years ago. Although he’d  _ been _ drunk, he was still conscious, but the guilt inside him had been too much to handle. He’d let himself go that nightb and cried on Hyuck’s shoulder with the excuse of alcohol, holding onto him, telling him the truth, and confessing to feeling so,  _ so  _ out of place. Next morning, Hyuck had treated him like always, never told anyone about it.

They became best friends after that.

Still, Jeno looks at the man standing next to Donghyuck. “You knew too, right?”

Ten slowly nods his head. “I was originally hired to be Mark’s guardian,” he explains, his eyes falling over the mentioned. His face has relaxed– it’s not as angry anymore. It even looks at him with care. “I looked after him everywhere he went to and answered for him. I had his back. Still do,” he sighs, a sad smile pulling up at his lips. “Like always.”

Mark smiles a little, too. Ten truly did always his best to look after him.

“... What about you, though?” Jaemin narrows his eyes towards Yuta, and really–

What about him?

Mark thinks about it for a second. “Huh… I don’t know. I think he heard it from Johnny hyung but I don’t...”

He doesn’t really know why Yuta knows. He turns to look at his brother, who turns to look at the artist.

Silently, Yuta remembers Johnny coming to his home one night, complaining about all the debuts and projects he’d been put in charge of on top of his manager duties. Yuta had complained with him about all those unfair extra jobs he had and suggested for him to quit, but out of stress, Johnny dropped the bomb on him and suddenly everything made sense. So he simply heard him that night, prepared him coffee and cuddled him in bed. 

Not that anyone in the room would believe that.

Maybe it’s time they tell.

“He’s...” the manager mumbles, looking up at the other for help.

Yuta laughs, and he does the most Yuta thing ever instead of answering– he squishes both of Johnny’s cheeks with one of his hands to make him pout, and he plants a kiss on his lips so naturally it’s almost scary.

Both Ten and Mark let out a high-pitched “ _ What?!” _ while Hyuck laughs and Jaemin yells “ _ I told you so! Now pay me! _ ” to his two friends sitting shocked next to him (did they have a bet about it?!). 

They’re the couple of lighthearted minutes everyone needed before moving onto the next thing, the one that’s been haunting Mark since almost two years ago.

It’s almost scary to step into it.

“So,” Jeno mutters after all the Johnny-Yuta fuss has passed. He sounds hesitant, almost like he doesn’t want to bring it up. “What happened with Lucas?”

And although he could leave it on Johnny to continue explaining, although he could just sit back and let someone else do the talking for him, Mark decides against it. This is something that involves and concerns him, and it’s something he has to learn how to face now in order to do it again later, when he can finally get to Lucas.

So he takes it on him to answer this one. 

“You all know how the debut process inside our label is, right?” Mark asks, and his friends nod.

The process is quite simple, though the company makes it seem like the contrary.

When a new project is presented to the headboard, they usually already have a preselected line-up of trainees meaning to debut into it. Either way, they make all of them have some sort of  _ auditions _ , tests to make it seem as if they’re trying to decide whether or not they’re fit to debut into the project. Even if they have no real chance of joining, they make most of them participate. And even yet, though unusual, there are times where a trainee can join or lose their spot inside the project based on those auditions.

Mark takes a deep breath before continuing. “Well, when they were in the talks to debut a new band, Dad liked the idea. You guys plus Lucas were already pretty popular trainees back then, so you were the obvious choice. I mean, you’d even managed to create a small but loyal fan-base, one that could easily follow you in your career and help you gain fame and attention quickly. It was the perfect plan,” he sighs, head hanging low and eyes staring down. “So perfect Dad wanted me to take part in it.”

It was almost done flawlessly.

Being born the son of a record producer, Mark had always had music present in his life. He’d started learning how to play all kinds of instruments from the moment he could hold things with both his hands, had vocal training from the second he said his first word. Every day and every night for him were training, but he didn’t mind because he loved it. He could never really understand why his brother didn’t, why he’d rather go to college and get a Business Management degree. Whenever Mark held a guitar in his hands, whenever his fingers danced over the piano keys, he felt truly alive.

Therefore, when his father had finally,  _ finally  _ told him that he could join a project under his label, he’d been thrilled.  _ It’s a band _ , he’d said,  _ They need a talented guitarist, are you up for the challenge? _

Mark would’ve been dumb to say no.

They signed him into the label, introduced him to the trainees as someone who had different practice schedules because of school, but that he’d been training almost as long as all of them had. Ten had been next to him the whole time, to answer the more specific questions and make sure no one tried to pry into his life. He was literally a guardian to him, and he did a damn good job at keeping Mark safe.

It was almost done flawlessly.

“So they pulled Lucas out to have  _ you _ in… And you just let them?” Renjun infers from what he understood. He doesn’t sound like he’s judging nor hating on him. He’s just genuinely curious. 

But before Mark can defend himself, someone else answers for him.

“No, he didn’t,” Ten says, taking a few steps towards the front of the room so he can be heard. He sounds almost annoyed over the fact that they would even dare think that of Mark. “Because they never told him about Lucas.”

He found out about him a year after their debut.

It was their first anniversary as a band, and they’d held a small party at the place that used to be their dorm room. Jeno had brought cake and they’d managed to not burn down their kitchen while cooking dinner, and they’d just sat around their table and talked about the road so far and everything they still had left to achieve.

Then, Donghyuck had brought up Lucas, said “ _ Wish he could’ve made it with all us, _ ” and Mark had to actually ask who was he talking about.

The next morning he’d asked his father about it, and the man didn’t even try to deny what he’d done. Mark remembers that was the day of his first anxiety attack, remembers the terrifying sensation that he was going to die. How could he have done that? How could he take someone else’s place, someone who had worked hard for it, maybe even harder than he ever did?

Where was he right now, and why was he not here instead of Mark?

He’d started to feel like stranger on stage. He didn’t belong there, he lacked, he needed to make up for what he did. Magazines and internet news at the time talked about him– What was going on with Trigger The Fever’s guitarist? He seemed distracted in interviews, uninterested in social gatherings. He’d isolated himself from the world that had just started to welcome him with open arms, and if he continued like this it was not only going to affect his career, but his bandmates’s too.

One day, everything changed, though. Mark was starting to act like himself again, was beginning to get more involved into the scene. He smiled again and performed at his full capacity and the rumors about his condition disappeared with the wind.

All it had taken was one call with Ten, a promise, and to hold onto a string of hope.

“Had I known I was taking someone’s place, I would’ve said no,” Mark tells his friends, and the slight trembling of his voice makes it clear that he’s being honest. “I never wanted to be famous or be recognized for being my father’s son. All I wanted was to make music.”

His bandmates know.

They know, because they’ve spent the last three years next to him, practicing with him, talking with him. laughing with him. They know Mark enough to know his heart, his mind, his way of seeing things. He has always been someone dedicated in body and soul to the music, but they know he wouldn’t have tried to screw someone else over it. They know he wouldn’t purposefully take someone’s place to secure his own. Especially not if he could have a place wherever he wanted to. His father could even release him as a solo artist if he asked. But Mark had never asked, because he hadn’t wanted to have it handed to him. He’d wanted to work hard for it, to earn that spot, to do his best and improve each day. 

They know so, after sharing a look between them, they nod and stand up from the couch.

Then they walk over to Mark and wrap him in a hug.

“We knew and trained with Lucas for so long, we obviously missed him and kept talking about him, so after reading the news we were all losing our shit, but… ” Jaemin mutters, pursing his lips like he’s embarrassed. “We didn’t think about the possibility that you probably didn’t even know. We didn’t consider how you could’ve felt. We’re sorry.”

“We believe you, Mark,” Renjun says, smiling apologetically. “We know you’re not that kind of guy, and we don’t blame you about anything.”

“We’re here for you, man,” Jeno mumbles, messing up Mark’s hair with a hand. “We’re a team. We know you.”

Mark feels so loved and supported he could genuinely cry right now. 

He hugs back his friends, apologizes to them even though they say he doesn’t have to. Hyuck complains from his spot (“ _ What the hell, I want a hug, too! _ ”) and walks up to join them, all five members finally smiling, knowing there are no more secrets between them. 

They talk a little more about it all– their debut, Mark’s family, the way he’d been lured into joining without being told of what had to be done for him to actually join. Everyone understands and feels for Mark, and after the older opens up about the way it had all made him feel back then, even still a little to this day, they all reassure him that he deserves to be here and reprimand him for even thinking that he doesn’t. He gets showered with praise and love that Mark doesn’t feel like he deserves, but no matter how much he fights against it, it’s useless, he still gets it.

The band even moves onto teasing Johnny, first for having to be his little brother’s manager and then for dating one of the most eligible artists of the decade (“ _ Number 3 on The Hottest Rockstars That Ever Graced The Stage list, hyung! _ ” Jaemin yells. Yuta agrees with him by saying Johnny should claim him publicly soon before someone snatches him away) and the air inside the house regains that usual warmth and lightness that always make Mark feel at home.

He notices Ten, still standing by the window, typing something down on his phone. His eyebrows are furrowed and he looks worried, and Mark walks up to him as the rest keep talking and joking like nothing’s ever happened.

“... Any news from him?” the younger asks, a little scared to know the answer.

Ten shakes his head. “Kun hasn’t been able to make him get out of the room. The boys keep texting him on their group chat and he’s seeing the messages, but he’s not answering,” he explains, sighing his soul out. He looks around the living room for his coat. “I have to go.”

“I want to go with you,” Mark blurts out, determination heavy on his voice.

The older gives him a look, though. “I really don’t think that’s a good idea, Mark.”

Ten finds his coat and puts it on, fingers clumsy when he has to button it up. He looks tired, but it doesn’t seem entirely physical– his eyelids are droopy and his movements are slow, and as he says goodbye to everyone in the room, his voice sounds weary. Johnny stands up from his seat to hug him, and he thanks him for coming to check up on them even though they hadn’t spoken in so long. Ten hugs him back, says  _ I had to, dummy, _ and threatens Yuta not to hurt his best friend or else he’ll make sure his career is over. He’s definitely capable of doing that, so Yuta pinky promises him he won’t ever mistreat him and then he’s ready to leave.

Mark follows him to the entrance and out the door, the two of them finally alone after so long.

The younger has a lot to say and he doesn’t even know where to start, so he simply says what he thinks is more important right now. 

“I’m sorry,” Mark mumbles before the other can pull out his car keys and leave. “For accusing you, also for doubting you… And for punching you. I’m sorry about it all.”

The streets are quiet and calm outside because it’s early in the morning. Ten has his hands buried inside his coat pockets, and his lip is still slightly swollen and stained with blood, but when he looks at Mark, there are no signs of anger in his eyes.

He could never be mad at him for too long. 

“It’s okay. I understand how it must’ve looked– with the article out right after I’d been pestering you over telling him...” Ten looks down to his feet. “I’m sorry, too.”

“For what?”

“Not being able to protect you.”

For some reason, Mark feels like crying again. His lips pull up in a sad smile, and he nudges the other. “You did a great job at protecting me when I was younger,” he mutters, biting the inside of his cheek. “But that’s not your job anymore, hyung. I should be able to protect myself.”

Ten knows, but he can’t help the small feeling of guilt that’s putting pressure over his chest. “I’m just a carer, I guess. I care too much,” he huffs, slightly annoyed. “About you, about Johnny, about Xuxi. About the rest of the band.”

“About your husband?” Mark offers.

The other shakes his head. “Hell no.  _ He _ has to care about me. Otherwise, who will?” he jokes and it makes the younger laugh, too. It’s nice, to laugh together. They used to do it all the time when Ten was still around.

“I care about you, hyung,” Mark then confesses, voice quiet with embarrassment. “And I appreciate you a whole bunch. You’ve helped me a lot more than anyone ever has. I’m sorry I’ve been ungrateful.”

There’s a bunch of stuff Mark has asked him to do for him, to help him with, and Ten has always agreed without hesitating once. He’s always had his back, truly, no matter the time or place.

Ten tries to act tough, but it’s pretty obvious he’s repressing a smile. “You  _ should _ be sorry, you brat. The only reason I’m not beating the shit out of you right now is that I love you too much,” he punches Mark’s shoulder playfully, so it doesn’t hurt. 

Then he pulls him into a hug, the tightest he can.

The embrace is warm, honest, and even though Mark has grown slightly taller than him, Ten’s arms feel strangely protective when wrapped around his body. The world around Mark melts away as he squeezes the older back, not wanting the hug to end. It’s been too long, and he doesn’t know what’ll happen next.

All he wants is to stay here, in this moment.

“It’s going to be okay, Mark,” Ten suddenly says, like reading his thoughts. “He’ll come around soon, he just needs time.”

He’s right, like always. But Mark can’t help being slightly scared. “What if he hates me? What if he doesn’t ever want to see me again?”

Ten doesn’t have an answer to that, because he doesn’t really know, either. He simply hugs Mark a little tighter, a little closer. Maybe he doesn’t have the words to make it all better, but he can try with actions. 

When they pull back, Ten puts a hand on Mark’s cheek. “I’ll do what’s in my hands to help. I can’t promise you I’ll make things go back to how they used to, but I’ll try to make sure both of you are okay at the end of the day and–”

“You’re the best, hyung,” Mark interrupts him, smiling a little. “But it’s not on you to fix things between us. That’s my job, and I’ll figure out how to do it, okay? You just need to let us work it out.”

Against his best efforts, Ten agrees. He agrees because he knows the younger is right, and that he should only do what’s in his hands. He’ll get back to the penthouse and try to talk to Xuxi, and if he says he doesn’t want to talk to Mark ever again, he’ll respect that. He’ll support him because he can only imagine how he must be feeling, but he’ll make sure Mark doesn’t blame himself for that. That’s all he can do, because he cares too much about both of these boys to pick a side.

He hugs Mark one last time, makes him promise to call if he feels anxious or stressed again, and then he’s finally into his car and going back home.

The younger stands at the driveway as his friend leaves, thinking of whatever will come next. He could go after him, call a cab to take him to Lucas, too, ask Johnny to drive him there, but he doesn’t. He doesn’t do that because it’s not what he’s supposed to, not what Lucas would want him to do. He needs time, and Mark will give it to him. As much as he needs before approaching again and try to fix things between them.

Mark will give him time– he just hopes it’s not a lifetime.


	7. Chapter 7

It’s been a week.

Mark realizes because his phone has remained without new messages, calls or morning texts that wish him a nice day. He realizes because he can’t remember the last time he saw a red-colored emoji on his screen, or a bunch of exclamation marks next to each other, or a selfie that’s too close and too shaky but still makes his heart race.

It’s been a week, and he hasn’t been able to speak to Lucas, not even a word. He’s given up on calling and texting because he’s scared he won’t get an answer, but he’s also scared he’ll get one, too. He doesn’t know what to do, doesn’t know what to say, and every day it’s harder to make an approach when he doesn’t even know if it’ll be okay.

Everything else seems to be, though.

His father handled the media fairly well, and it had been almost scary how fast the news were forgotten by the public. Taeyong had taken it in him to keep the band busy on stuff that didn’t need much interaction with others, and Mark had been asked to stay home whenever he could to avoid getting jumped by the press, who’d probably ask questions to make him crumble. Since that didn’t happen and since technically they didn’t do anything illegal, Dream Records was off the hook in a matter of days, and the label kept the people rather focused on Kim Jungwoo’s comeback single.

It’s almost as if nothing had ever happened.

Still, Mark can’t act that way.

Especially not when he sees him for the first time after all that mess.

Lucas ignores him as he walks past him backstage of a benefit concert, doesn’t even spare him a glance even though Mark calls out for him. He mourns on how quickly they became strangers, as if they’d never been two people falling in love, kissing at an alley behind a bar or whispering words to each other like a promise. Mark remembers them, when they were sitting at the back of that cab, holding hands in the dark, and Lucas had pressed his lips to his ear and said  _ I wish this night could last forever _ and the younger had wished for that, too.

Instead, Mark sees him and he feels pressure over his chest, negative emotions swallowing him down without letting him breathe. He fights for the good memories, fights to keep himself hopeful even as every terrible thing that could’ve happened becomes true. 

He fights for it, but he doesn’t know how much longer he can put up with it.

His bandmates tell him to not lose hope, encourage him to try once more. Johnny and Ten call him almost every day to make sure he’s sleeping and eating well, and even if he isn’t, Mark says he is. They must know he’s bullshitting, though, because he keeps receiving cooked meals sent to his home and Johnny comes by every night to sleep on his bed with him. He’s being treated like a child, but Mark knows he’s lucky to have all of them. Otherwise, who knows what would happen to him.

He wonders about Lucas, though, wonders how is he doing. He doesn’t ask Ten about him because he doesn’t want him to worry, but he’s dying to know a thousand things.

Is he eating properly? Is he sleeping well?

Does he miss Mark as much as Mark misses him?

_____  
  


Lucas walks back to the apartment alone.

Somehow his friends had convinced him on going out for dinner and drinks tonight, saying maybe that would cheer him up. He knows they mean well and that the night’s still relatively young, but he feels tired for some reason and isn’t really in the mood for getting drunk. 

So now he’s heading back home alone.

The bar they went to isn’t far from their apartment building, so he decides to walk, feel the cold breeze hit his skin, see if that makes him feel more alive. 

It’s been a rough couple of days without seeing or hearing from Mark, and even though that’s what he needed, he’s not sure that’s what he wanted. He finds himself more often than not wondering how is the other doing– if he’s eating well, if he’s resting well. 

If he misses Lucas as much as Lucas misses him. 

He kind of regrets not looking at him the other day, when they were invited to that benefit concert and Mark had called out his name. Lucas had had to gather all of his courage not to turn around and talk to him, not to ask him for a hug, let alone a kiss. He’d walked right past him and locked himself in the restroom, trying to catch his breath and make his heart slow down. 

After that day, all of Mark’s attempts to talk to him had disappeared from his phone. 

Maybe he’s given up. Maybe he doesn’t think it’s worth it.

Lucas feels a shiver run down his back, though it’s not necessarily from the cold.

He’s gotten a lot of time to think about what happened, about the circumstances in which he’d learned the truth. He remembers coming back home from the Empathy 2020 afterparty feeling like he’d just died and gone to heaven– he’d kissed Mark, for God’s sake! He’d kissed him and Mark had kissed back, and just maybe that would lead to something else, and maybe he could keep on kissing him without ever holding back.

He hadn’t even been able to sleep at all that night, thinking about everything that had happened. Mark’s lyrics, the things he said in them. He’d talked about Lucas’s favorite color, his favorite song, about how his heart felt when he was near. He’d also said sorry, but what for? That’s the only part Lucas hadn’t been able to understand, but he’d figured he could ask about it the next morning.

Except his phone started dinging with messages by 3 AM, and despite his best wishes of it being Mark telling him he couldn’t sleep either because he kept thinking of their kiss, instead it had been the same link to a blog he didn’t even know the name of. Some of his friends had sent it, even a few fans through Twitter and Instagram DMs. What was all that about?

He remembers opening the link and feeling like he’d died and been sent to Hell.

He’d felt so confused, so disappointed.

So… betrayed?

Words can’t quite describe how he’d felt that night, and he’s not sure he could even describe what he feels right now. Lucas wants to scream, he wants to cry, he wants to never have to see Mark again, but he also wants to talk to him and ask him why.

Why didn’t he say that sooner?

Why did he keep such a thing from him?

He’s so inside his head and thinking of everything that’s happened, that he doesn’t even realize when he reaches the apartment building. Lucas walked here on instinct and he’s glad he didn’t get lost, otherwise Kun would’ve yelled at him again for roaming around alone at night.

He enters the building and then walks into the elevator, presses the button for their penthouse floor. He’s got his keys in his pocket and his eyes are starting to grow heavy, the promise of sleep too close once he reaches the door.

When he walks in, though, the first thing he hears is yelling.

Whatever’s being said is inaudible and muffled, but for some reason, the voices are too clear into the younger’s ears.

Kun and Ten are fighting inside the studio.

Lucas walks closer to the slightly opened doors of the small room, tries his best not to make much noise. It’s not that he’s being nosy, he’s just worried. They don’t ever really fight.

“– the best thing we can do!” Kun is saying, his voice slightly desperate.

Ten huffs. “I said  _ no _ , Kun. We promised Mark we wouldn’t tell him.”

“Do you care more about M–?”

“ _ Don’t _ ... Don’t you even fucking dare to say it, Qian,” and oh, he’s using the last name. Lucas feels a chill run down his spine at the tone of voice Ten is using. “Because you know it’s not true.”

Kun takes a deep breath, like he’s thinking about the right words to say. “Okay, okay. I’m sorry. I’m sorry,” he sighs, sounding defeated. Tired. “I just think it would be the best for Xuxi. He’s not being himself, darling, and you know it.”

Lucas frowns.

He’s… not? What does that mean?

“I know,” Ten mumbles after a bit. His voice quivers, is he trying not to cry? “I know, and I hate to see it, too. But we just can’t… We just can’t tell him. I don’t… I don’t want to make things worse.”

A sob. He’s definitely crying now.

“Hey, hey. Come here,” Kun tells him, his voice as soothing as ever. Lucas imagines he’s walked over to his husband and wrapped his arms around him. “It’s okay, dear. I know you care about the two of them and that you want to help them both… But they need to know everything. Lucas especially. He won’t be able to close down this book if he doesn’t have the missing chapter, you know what I mean?”

Ten scoffs and sniffs. “You’re so weird,” he laughs a little. “But I get it… Maybe you’re right. Maybe we should tell him.”

“Maybe we should.”

They talk a little more, like they’re planning on what to say and when to say it, but Lucas isn’t listening anymore. 

He gulps, staring down at the floor, thinking. He won’t be able to sleep tonight after hearing this, a thousand questions already popping inside his head, and he’s afraid he might try and answer them himself if he doesn’t get to hear whatever they have to tell him right now.

So he takes a deep breath and walks inside the room, finds his manager and his publicist the same way he’d pictured them– standing in the middle of the little studio, holding onto each other like they’re about to dance.

Both turn around to look at him surprised, and Ten quickly brings up his hands to wipe away the visible tears on his cheeks. “Xuxi,” he says, trying to sound like everything’s okay. “What are you doing here? I thought you were out with the others.”

“I was tired so I came home earlier,” he explains, hiding his hands inside his pockets. “What do you have to tell me?”

Ten sends Kun a worried look, like scared about the fact they got caught. His husband does nothing but sigh, pursing his lips. He looks really,  _ really _ tired, but he doesn’t tell Lucas to go to bed, or that they’ll talk about it in the morning.

Instead, he simply looks back at Ten, arches an eyebrow and, when the other nods, it’s decided.

“Sit down, Xuxi,” Kun says, gesturing towards the small couch and taking a few steps towards the door to close it. “There’s something you need to know.”

_____

March 2nd, 2018

It’s the middle of the night when Ten gets the call.

He wakes up in a frenzy, blindly palming around his nightstand to look for his phone, wondering who could it be that’s calling at such hours. Kun grunts slightly next to him on the bed but he doesn’t wake up (thank God he’s a heavy sleeper), and when Ten sees the contact name brightening up his screen, he immediately stands up and walks out of the bedroom.

He picks up once he’s downstairs.

“Mark?” he asks as soon as he presses the green button, voice full of worry. “Mark, are you okay? Where are you? Do you need anything?”

There’s got to be a reason for the younger to be calling at 3:11 AM. Maybe he had another fight with his father, maybe he’s out drunk somewhere alone, maybe he’s having another anxiety attack. A thousand different scenarios pop up inside his head, each worse than the previous, and Ten curses for being too far away, at another freaking country.

But when Mark speaks, he sounds okay. If only just slightly agitated. “Hyung, I found him.”

“What?” the older asks, not knowing what’s going on. “What are you talking about?”

“I found him, hyung!” Mark repeats, as if it were obvious. His voice is full of excitement, like a kid on a sugar rush. “Wong Lucas!”

It takes Ten a minute to remember who is that, the name saved somewhere inside his brain. When he finds it, it finally clicks. “... What do you mean you found him, Mark?”

“I found him,” the other mumbles again, as if it were the only thing he knew how to say. “I’ve been looking for him… I’ve been trying to… I was hoping he wouldn’t…”

He’s not making any sense. It’s almost like his mind is running so fast his mouth can barely keep up with it, blurting out incomplete sentences and random words that are not telling Ten anything.

The older puts a hand up even if Mark can’t see him. “Okay, okay, stop. Breathe. Count to three,” he instructs, and it’s kind of sweet to realize the other obeys. Ten can hear Mark inhaling deeply, only to finally exhale after a few seconds. It makes him smile. “Now tell me.”

Mark sighs. “I found Wong Lucas,” he repeats, this time more calmly and clearly. “I’d been looking for him the past few weeks because… I’ve been trying to make up for what I did.”

_ What I did _ , he says, as if he’d pulled Lucas out of the band himself. Ten wishes he could repat to him that it wasn’t his fault over and over again, so it can finally get behind his skull and let him breathe. But Mark’s still talking, so he simply listens.

“I was hoping he wouldn’t have given up on music… He didn’t. I’m so glad he didn’t. Look,” he says, and Ten’s phone vibrates into his hand and against his ear. “I sent you a link. Check it out.”

The older brings down his phone, presses the home button so he can tap his finger on the blue colored link that Mark sent him through text. It redirects him to Youtube, and Ten kinda regrets not bringing his glasses with him. He holds the phone a little closer to his face even though the brightness is too high against the darkness of his living room, and he narrows his eyes at the screen as four boys appear on it, cramped inside of what looks like a basement. One of them is holding a bass, another one a guitar, the one in the middle is holding a microphone and the last boy sits behind a drum set. They seems like your typical wannabe band composed of teenage misfits, but when they start to play, Ten’s actually quite impressed.

“They’re good, right?” he hears Mark’s faint voice say what’s on his mind. 

The man squints a little at the letters, eyes over the title that reads  _ Bring Me The Horizon - Drown [Cover by RainbowV] _ before finally exiting the video and getting back to the call with Mark. “Yeah, they are. The guitarist… Is that Wong Lucas?”

The younger makes an  _ uh-huh _ sound. “He’s so good, I can’t stop listening to his solos. They have handful of subscribers, too, so you know they’re good. Besides…”

He keeps on rambling about the band, way too hyped for someone who’s calling at 3 AM. Ten can feel his eyes closing and his mind drifting away— it’s not that he doesn’t want to listen to Mark, but he’d rather do it at a time where he’s not supposed to be in bed cuddling his husband.

“Mark,” he says, interrupting him in the middle of a rant on why Lucas’s technique is so unique. “I get it, they’re great, they really are… But why are you calling me?”

“Oh,” he stops for a second, like he doesn’t know how to say what’s supposed to come next. And when he does, he almost whispers it. “They’re playing at this place, Weishen, tomorrow night… Or well, more like, tonight. It’s already tomorrow.”

Ten blinks a few times, adjusting his brain to what he just heard. “Weishen… The _bar_?” he asks, referring to the small pub a few blocks down from where he and Kun currently live. Mark _uh-huh_ s. “So they’re from here? Fujian?”

_ Uh-huh _ again.

“And you want me to…?”

Mark lets out a small, embarrassed sound. “Uhm, I was wondering if you could go check them out, you know… With Kun.”

And  _ oh _ . It finally makes sense.

Because why else would Mark want to find this boy? Why else would he want him to go see him and his band tonight, at this one random bar, with his husband— _ a talent scout _ ?

Ten sighs. “Mark, you know he can’t get them signed just like that. There’s a bunch of procedures and an audition and other scouts above Kun and I just-”

“Please,” Mark mutters, voice slightly shaking. “Please, hyung. I know it’s not easy. I’m not asking you to pull strings or play dirty to get them signed or anything. I just want Kun to hear them and think about it, I just...” he looks for the words inside his brain. “I just want them to have a chance.”

He sounds too invested in this, and Ten doesn’t have the heart to tell him no.

Those boys  _ are  _ actually good, and going out to hear them play can’t be that bad. Besides, he could use a night out with Kun– they've both been too busy and working too hard, barely having time to go out on a date. Besides, they’re both free tonight, so maybe…

“Okay,” he finally says, and Mark’s smile at the other side of the line is almost audible. “We’ll just go there and listen. If Kun likes them, he’ll see what he can do, but that’s as far as we go. The rest is up to them.”

“Yes! Yes, of course. Thank you, hyung!” Mark cheers, almost like he’s jumping around. “You’re the best! Thank you, oh, thank you so much!”

He keeps sputtering out a bunch of compliments and grateful praise, and even though it’s not necessary (because he doesn’t even know if it’ll work out), Ten lets him. Mark has been out of himself lately, has been harshly criticized by the media about it, and the older knows it’s because of that one thing that has been haunting him for over a month now. So if he can help him, even just a little, to bring peace to his mind, he certainly will.

Ten sends him off to bed then, tells him he needs to rest for his schedules tomorrow, and the younger promises he’ll do his best. 

All Ten wants him to promise, though, is for him to be okay.

_____

“That night we went to Weishen, and you guys were there,” Kun says after explaining the background story that led them there. “Just like Mark had said.”

Lucas has to take a minute to process it.

He remembers that night, two years ago. He remembers seeing Kun and Ten entering the bar like they definitely did  _ not  _ belong there, though he hadn’t think much of it at the time. He remembers that night being one of his favorite as a local band, because they’d played his favorite song and the audience at the bar had been the best they’d ever had. They had encore for the first time that night, for God’s sake!

Getting scouted by Kun… That’d been the cherry on top.

“He’d wanted to make up for what happened with you,” Ten mumbles then, his voice trembling slightly. “Even though it hadn’t been his fault.”

They’ve explained that for him, too.

Lucas still has all of the details fuzzy inside his head. So Mark…  _ didn’t _ know about it. He didn’t know about the fact that Lucas had been pulled out of the project, left behind like a puzzle piece that didn’t quite fit. He didn’t know that he’d been promised a spot, only to have it taken away from him. He didn’t know that, the day for “auditions”, Lucas had gotten there only a little late, but that the staff hung up on that excuse to not even let him play.

For so long, he’d thought it had just been bad luck. Turns out, it worked perfect for their plan.

A plan Mark didn’t even know of, and that he’d tried to make up for long after Lucas was gone.

Why?

“... Were we signed out of pity?” the question leaves Lucas’s lips before he can think about it through. It sounds a lot more harsh out loud than it did in his head, but he needs an answer. “Are we just a charity project fundraised by Mark?”

“ _ Xuxi _ ,” Ten reprimands him, his voice bitter. Like he can’t believe he would even think that.

Kun puts a hand on his husband’s shoulder, trying to calm him down. “You’re  _ not _ , Yukhei. Mark gave us a location to meet you, but the rest was on you,” the manager explains, never losing his temper, though he seems at the verge of. “Had I not liked what I saw that night, I would’ve just walked out of that bar. I would’ve kept looking for the next best thing.”

“But you were  _ good _ ,” Ten says then, trying to make him understand. “You were good, so Kun asked you to audition. Whatever happened from that point on was entirely on you guys. Mark just gave a little push. He wanted to do that for you.”

It’s too much.

It’s too much to handle and too much to take, and Lucas doesn’t know how much longer he can stay here and listen to this.

He stands up from the couch, in a trance-like state. Mark did that for him, because he felt guilty for what he’d done before, even if he hadn’t been fully aware he was doing it. He’d taken it on him to look for Lucas, pray he was still making music, just so he could offer an opportunity like the one he’d unconsciously make him miss.

It’s too much to handle and too much to take. 

Lucas has to get out of here.

He walks out of the little studio despite Ten’s protests, despite Kun asking him where is he going. They don’t run after him, though. He has to go, he has to get out of here so he can get his thoughts in order, and they know that. All he’s thinking is  _ MarkMarkMark _ but he doesn’t know if that's a good thing. 

When he opens the door to step outside, his bandmates are just coming back home, all three of them staring at him like he’s a spirit that appeared out of nowhere. They, too, ask where is he going, but Lucas doesn’t reply. He simply steps out of the apartment and starts walking away, and when he finally steps out back into the street, the cold breeze hits him and makes him feel alive, helps his mind become a little clearer from all that mist.

Lucas calls for a cab, the first he sees driving past the street, and he hops on it and finally leaves with one particular thought in mind.

Mark Lee is such an idiot.

–  _ 🎈 _ –

“You’re not even trying.”

“Yeah, I am.”

“Oh, are you?” Hyuck asks, annoyed. Mark can’t see him because he’s got his eyes on the screen, but he can hear his friend pressing down the buttons on his controller as fast as he can. “Then why can I do this, huh? You never let me do this.”

He stares at the way his character receives every single punch from Donghyuck’s– he takes a knee to the gut, a fist to the jaw, a kick to the shin. The video game produces a bunch of fake sounds like  _ oh _ and  _ ouch _ and  _ ugh _ , and his life bar decreases incredibly fast, while his friend’s remains almost untouched. Mark’s always been pretty good at games, especially the kind where you have to learn combinations to use in a fight, but right now he’s getting his ass kicked and Donghyuck knows it’s because he’s not even trying.

With a high kick to the side of his head, Mark’s character is defeated, the words  _ Finish him! _ echoing around the room, asking for the winner to give the fight an end. Hyuck has never learned the combo to do an actual fatality, so he simply knocks out his friend’s character with a punch to the stomach. 

It’s kinda lame.

“I swear to God,” Donghyuck mumbles after the game announces he’s won. “I will kick your ass in real life if you keep this up.”

Mark actually considers it to be a good idea.

It’s a little past 11 PM, meaning they’ve been playing video games for at least two hours. Hyuck proposed it as a way of distracting Mark from  _ it _ (as they call it now) though it hadn’t really worked that well. Instead of focusing on the best way to beat the shit out of his friend’s character, he’d been thinking about Xuxi, about how much he liked this game.

Everything reminds him of Lucas lately– the video games he plays, the movies he watches, even the red shirt he’s put on today.

He knows he probably shouldn’t, but Mark has counted the days since the article was posted, since Lucas erased himself from his life as if he’d never been there in the first place. They’re now more than he can count with his fingers.

It makes his throat tighten.

“Oi… Are you thinking about it again?” Donghyuck’s voice suddenly calls, his hand moving in front of Mark’s face to bring him back from his thoughts.

The older blinks rapidly. “Sorry.”

“Mark… I know it’s probably not what you want to hear, but you need to stop thinking about it,” his friend says, the same way he’s been saying the last couple of days. Hyuck has been really trying to help Mark through this, but it’s hard, especially when the older doesn’t even seem to try to let go of it. “I mean, if you’re waiting for him to suddenly show up at our door and say he’s ready to talk to you, I don’t think–”

The doorbell rings.

Both of them frown.

“... Did we ask for pizza and I forgot?” Hyuck says, confused.

Mark shakes his head no.

The younger stands up from the couch, candy wrappers falling from his lap into the carpet beneath them, and it’s just then that Mark realizes how dirty this place is. He makes a mental note about having to clean tomorrow morning as the other heads towards the front door, then he turns off the game console and the TV. He’s feeling tired and in some serious need for sleep.

“Um, Mark?” Donghyuck says from the entrance, the sound of the door shutting close behind him.

“Yeah?”

“Someone’s here to see you,” his friend’s voice becomes clearer as he walks back into the living room, and there’s footsteps beside his own thumping over the wooden floor of the hall. The older furrows his brow at the statement, but he quickly thinks–  _ must be Johnny hyung again. _ Mark had asked him to stop coming over the other day, promising that he’d sleep at least 8 hours, but his brother must’ve still thought he needed help going to bed.

But when Donghyuck and the newcomer walk into the living room, a pair of big caramel eyes he hasn’t seen in days, more than Mark can count with his fingers, try to greet him.

Lucas is here.

“Hi…” he says, his voice quiet. “I think I’m ready to talk.”

– _🎈_ _🎈_ –

“Uh, like...” Donghyuck mumbles, rubbing the back of his neck with a hand. “I can’t really leave, you know, because it’s... the middle of the night and I don’t have a car. Nor I can drive, for that matter, so… I’ll just… I’ll just be upstairs, okay?” he gestures up with a nervous hand. Then lifts up his pinky finger. “Promise I won’t eavesdrop. If you need anything just… Scream, I guess. But please don’t scream, or I’ll–”

“Hyuck,” Mark cuts him off. He needs to stop rambling. “It’s okay. Just go.”

“Right, right. I’m going. I’ll just… Go.”

The younger smiles awkwardly at the two of them, waves a pair of clumsy finger guns in the air before finally disappearing up the stairs. He leaves quickly, like he can’t wait to be away from there, his steps clearly indicating he’s climbing the stairs from two at a time.

They wait until they hear the sound of the door to his room closed shut before finally releasing the breath both had been holding.

Mark is the first to talk. “Please, have a seat,” he offers to the spot on the couch next to him, then realizes it’s full of Hyuck’s candy wrappers and cookie crumbs, and he’s so embarrassed he might pass out. Mark shakes them off the cushion with a hand, trying hard not to seem like an idiot, though he probably already does.

Lucas accepts the invitation without a single word, though, sits down next to the other carefully, like he’s scared he might get up and leave if he makes the wrong move.

It’s awkward for the first few seconds.

Mark’s sitting down with his legs crossed over the couch, and he becomes embarrassingly aware of his checkered pajama pants. 

But when Lucas finally speaks, he brings him back to this moment. “Kun ge and Ten ge told me everything,” he tests saying, but his eyes are not on Mark, they’re glued to his hands over his lap. “And I mean  _ everything. _ ”

Mark holds in his breath.

March 2nd, 2018. Weishen Pub. Fujian, China.

“Why would you do that?”

He takes a second to reply, trying to look for the right words to really express why he’d done that. Mark remembers that night pretty well. He’d been running on three cups of coffee, adrenaline coursing through his system. He’d made it his mission to find where Wong Lucas was, even if it was a little weird. He’d looked for him everywhere– Instagram, Twitter, even  _ Facebook _ (who used that anymore?) but it’d been harder than expected. His bandmates had new accounts they couldn’t yet manage themselves, so it’s not like he could’ve looked for him between their mutual follows. It’s also not like he could’ve just asked any of them “ _ Hey, you remember any of Lucas’s social media? I’m trying to find him after I practically kicked him out of the band! _ ”. 

He had limited options.

That night, however, he’d stumbled upon one of their cover videos on Youtube. He hadn’t even been looking for them, it just popped on his recommendations.  _ RainbowV _ used to be their name. Mark had clicked on the video and recognized the tall guitarist, from a few pictures Hyuck had shown him the other day. They had a link to an Instagram account with few followers, and a story that said  _ Come see us tomorrow at Weishen Pub! 10 PM sharp! _

Mark had had to call Ten then.

“I was just trying to fix what I’d done,” he mumbles out, his face hanging low, too.

Lucas speaks as softly as the other does. “I thought you didn’t know.”

Ten told him– swore him– so. He’d told him that Mark had nothing to do with the decision of pulling him out, that his father hadn’t even planned on telling him. Ten had been hired for that, to protect him from the outside but also from the inside. Mark was never meant to know, because his dad knew he could’ve gone as far as stepping out of the band, and he wouldn’t have allowed that.

It was easier for him not to know.

“I didn’t,” Mark confesses, once and for all looking up at the other sitting next to him. If he has to talk about this, he’ll do it while looking at his face. It’s the least he can do. “But it was because of me that it happened, so I took responsibility for it. I had to make it up to you.”

“Is that why you hated me? The first few weeks?” Lucas asks, though it sounds like he already knows the answer.

Still, Mark replies. “I never hated you,” he says as clearly as he can. He needs the other to hear him. “Looking at you just made me feel guilty.”

Silence.

Then, his name. “Mark.”

“... Yeah?”

“Why are you such an idiot?”

He’s been asking himself that same question for a while now, but hearing it fall from Lucas’s lips is… 

The older’s still looking down at his hands. They’re clasped together and he’s resting his elbows on his knees, thinking. It’s too much to handle, too much to take. Mark sitting right there next to him, but Lucas somehow wants him close, closer than this, wants to take him by the shoulders and shake his frame and just ask over and over again  _ why are you such an idiot _ .

Instead, he simply sighs.

“Why would you feel guilty over something that you had no control of?” Lucas protests, and he finally raises his head to look at Mark. He looks genuinely confused, like he can’t understand the other’s thought process. “For so many years, you just… carried that weight, that remorse. And you did everything in your power to make it up to me, even though you didn't even know me, even though you could’ve just let it go and moved on, and I just don’t understand… How are you this much of an idiot.”

He’s almost cursing at him, but why is he also kinda smiling? He must be losing his mind.

Mark’s heart beats a thousand times per second, already feeling the knot on his throat tying and tightening, preventing him from saying anything.

He doesn’t have to say anything, though.

“It wasn’t your fault, Mark,” Lucas says, a set of words the younger never thought he’d get to hear from him. They make his heart suddenly stop. “None of it. Not me being late to rehearsal, not the staff using that as an excuse to leave me out. Not me having to go back home. None of that was your own personal fault, yet you tried to make it up to me, and you know why?”

He doesn’t.

“Because you’re a good person, Mark. A real idiotic, great person.”

Mark doesn’t even know how it happens, but it does– Lucas launches forward and wraps him in a tight hug, as tight as if they’d been apart for years, or as if his was the last time they’ll see each other. He hugs him close, too close, and Mark’s mind is saying  _ I don’t deserve this _ and _ You should hate me _ and  _ I’m sorry _ , but he shakes those thoughts away because they don’t matter, not after what he just heard Lucas say.

He doesn’t blame him, doesn’t think it was his fault. 

So Mark hugs back.

He buries his face into the crook of Lucas’s neck and they sit there like that for a while, Mark wracked with the force of unvoiced cries and the other holding him, heart aching for him. The warmth of being with him and being happy made him want forgiveness even more.

“I’m sorry,” he mutters, even though he doesn’t have to. “Even if it wasn’t my fault… I want to make it up to you. I’ll do anything– I’ll get down on my knees and beg, I’ll quit the band, I’ll make a public apology video, I don’t care. Whatever you want, I’ll do it.”

Lucas laughs a little into the hug. “Whatever I want?”

“Whatever.”

“What if I want one hundred red balloons?”

Mark smiles despite the burning feeling at the back of his eyes.

“Just say the word,” he mutters a little embarrassed. “I’ll get it done.”

They laugh together, first slightly, then a little more confidently. Lucas laughs and it’s a sound Mark hasn’t heard in so long and it’s a sound he would’ve waited for as long as he needed to hear again. They release each other slowly, almost like neither want to let go.

Lucas puts a hand on Mark’s hair, ruffles in affectionately. “You don’t have to do anything. It’s okay. We’re okay. We’re both here.”

They are, Mark realizes.

Though there’s still something left to do.

“Can I kiss you?” the question leaves his lips on its own, like it’d been waiting to be pronounced since the second the taller had walked into the room. 

Lucas smiles, but he doesn’t answer. Instead, he simply cups Mark’s cheeks with both his hands and pulls him close, leans in so their lips can meet. The tender touch they share makes the room around them disappear. There isn’t anything else in the world except the them, their lips, their sweetness. Something about this makes Mark feel like everything will be okay. It feels the same way it felt all those days ago at the alley– warm, and slow, the kiss lasting just a second too long.

But this time there’s no rush to stop.

Lucas’s lips brush against Mark’s as he tugs him closer. The younger presses his head against the other’s chest, nestling closer, listening to his heartbeat. It’s going as fast as Mark’s is right now, and it’s somehow reassuring to know it’s there– a thunderous and rapid pounding that makes him smile with relief.

They look at each other, both a little unsteady. There’s longing and love and gentleness on Lucas’s eyes as he holds Mark against him and, unable to resist any longer, he leans in again so their mouths press together in another long kiss. 

They could spend the entire night like this if they could.

Or if they were alone.

“ _ Uhhhh _ guys?” Donghyuck’s voice calls from upstairs, a little shaky. “Does that silence mean one has killed the other, or are you just full on making out? Because either way  _ please don’t _ because I’m right here.”

So much for someone who wasn’t going to eavesdrop, right?

–  _ 🎈🎈🎈 _ –

They're on the last half of their set, and Mark can feel the crowd buzzing with anticipation. 

He’s breathing heavily trying to catch his breath, as Renjun reaches out for his bottle of water and Hyuck reaches over the edge of the stage to hold as many as hands as he can. Jeno’s forehead is damp with sweat so he pulls up his shirt to wipe his face, flashing his torso, the thousands of fans screaming with delight in response. He flushes (their reaction never fails to do that) and they all hear Johnny whisper “ _ ready _ ” into their ear pieces. Jaemin takes a deep breath and lifts his drumsticks– poised for battle.

“Are you ready to rock on some more?” Hyuck yells into his microphone and the crowd shouts back their approval.

Mark narrows his eyes, tries to see past the blinding lights illuminating the stage. He looks at the fans, tries to take them all in. It’s the first of the two sold-out shows they’ll play at SM Arena, and the place is packed with people screaming and yelling for each and every single one of them. He takes a deep breath.

Finally, he feels like he belongs.

“Good, ‘cuz we are, too!” the vocalist smirks, looking at the crowd like they’re the stars up in the sky. “But before we get heavy again... How about we go light?

Renjun teasingly asks. “Light as a balloon?”

And the crowd makes some more noise. A cacophony of applause and cheering, whooping, hollering, clapping, stamping of feet, palpable excitement buzzed through the charged air. They know what comes next– one of their most laid back songs, but one that’s still charged with an addicting bass line from Jeno, a constant beat, and the most beautiful lyrics they’ve ever heard.

Mark takes a look backstage, meets his eyes.

Lucas is standing right there, staring at him with the fondest expression on his face. His hair is back to brown but he’s still the only one Mark can see, demanding all of his attention with that bright, beautiful smile and those big, caramel eyes that greet him every time he looks.

His boyfriend puts a hand to his heart, mutters  _ I love you. _ Mark whispers it back.

Hyuck turns to the side, looks at him to ask if he’s ready. When he says yes, they both smile. The crowd goes crazy.

“This one’s called  _ Rouge _ .”


End file.
